(Trinidad Express) Less than 48 hours after former prime minister Patrick Manning suffered a stroke, he has been taken out of the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the San Fernando General Hospital and has shown some signs he is on the road to recovery.
Minister of Health Dr Fuad Khan, who visited Manning at the hospital, said he (Manning) smiled, gave a thumbs-up sign and had regained his ability to swallow.
Khan said Manning was moved from ICU to a high-dependency unit. “He has smiled. He understands when I speak. I spent a very short time in there and I see his recovery is slowly progressing. It is better than yesterday,” the Health Minister told reporters outside the hospital.
Khan said while Manning had at this time lost his ability to speak, he could understand what was being said to him. He said the part of the brain which controls Manning’s ability to remember had been affected.
“He is lucid, but when you have a right-sided stroke, the left-sided part of your hemisphere, in your temporal lobe, is the focus area that disallows you from articulating. But you can hear, you can understand, you can shake your head. Mr Manning gave me the thumbs up when I was leaving,” he said.
“When the swelling goes down, he might be able to articulate better,” said Khan. “He has started to swallow, which is an extremely good sign. Initially with stroke victims, they cannot swallow because that effect has gone. But some effect has come back.”
He said Manning’s health condition may have recovered at least five per cent from yesterday, and like with many stroke victims, he will slowly continue to recover until as much as 80 per cent of functions return in about three to four months’ time.
“Yesterday was a medical insult to his brain. So it is now resolving based on the medication that he is getting. So the swelling is depleting and the pressure is under control. So you will find his neurons will start to function at this time. We will get success (with his medical condition) as we go on.”
During the interview, Khan stressed several times that Manning’s visitors should be restricted to his immediate family members only, as the privacy would assist in his recovery.
“Let Mr Manning rest,” Khan said. “Let his management take over and hopefully we will get a success rate that we normally find in about 20 to 30 per cent of victims of stroke, which sometimes resolve on its own.”
He said there were specialists at the hospital to deal with Manning’s condition; and Dr Kamta Ramcharan, who is attending to him, is a neurologist who specialises in patients who have suffered cardiovascular accidents.
Asked if Manning suffered a brain haemorrhage, Khan said: “I don’t know exactly if it is. The scan does not show anything major.”
The Health Minister said Manning was going to remain warded at hospital “as long as it takes”.
“He is in the best hands,” Khan said. “We are giving him every single thing in this hospital to make him comfortable. I have told Dr Bodoe no holds barred. Whatever Mr Manning wants, Mr Bodoe and the SWRHA (South-West Regional Health Authority) will give it to him.”
