Councillor Baliram off ventilator at hospital

Gail Alexan­der

UNC Freeport/Chick­land coun­cil­lor Anil Bali­ram is no longer on a ven­ti­la­tor and is now breath­ing on his own with oxy­gen as­sis­tance, ac­cord­ing to San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal au­thor­i­ties.

Bali­ram has been ward­ed in the hos­pi­tal's In­ten­sive Care Unit (ICU) since last Sun­day fol­low­ing a sus­pect­ed self-harm in­ci­dent at his Cou­va home.

Emer­gency health per­son­nel and po­lice ad­min­is­tered CPR and he was rushed to hos­pi­tal. How­ev­er, Bali­ram re­mained un­con­scious and was in­tu­bat­ed, breath­ing via a ven­ti­la­tor.

Bali­ram's wife did not an­swer calls Fri­day about his con­di­tion. How­ev­er, hos­pi­tal au­thor­i­ties briefly said he was still in the ICU but was no longer on the ven­ti­la­tor and his breath­ing tubes have been re­moved. They said he was breath­ing on his own and re­mains on oxy­gen.

UNC of­fi­cials said that "a lot of prayers" are be­ing sent for Bali­ram and cred­it­ed hos­pi­tal au­thor­i­ties with work­ing "very, very hard on the mat­ter as the hos­pi­tal does for all its pa­tients."

Of­fi­cials of the Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion said a pall hung over Wednes­day's statu­to­ry meet­ing be­cause Bali­ram was not there and due to the cir­cum­stances of his ab­sence a ser­vice was held for him that day.

They added that they were told yes­ter­day that no vis­i­tors were cur­rent­ly be­ing al­lowed to see Bali­ram.

Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Ryan Ram­per­sad did not re­ply to calls.