By Sujoy Dhar, IANS
Kolkata : Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen, who was admitted to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi for “suspected drug effect” Jan 26, said Wednesday that she had been administered wrong medicines by government deputed doctors leading to the hospitalisation.
In her first telephonic interview from her undisclosed address after she was discharged from the hospital Wednesday, the writer said: “I was living under stress and that caused hypertension.”
According to Nasreen, when she felt uneasy, she wasn’t seen by a cardiologist and was instead taken to some place where a doctor deputed by the government gave her “wrong drugs”.
“I immediately fainted from the poisonous effect Saturday evening. Then I was taken to the AIIMS and there the doctors saved me. I was in the CCU,” Nasreen told IANS.
“I am not yet stable. I cannot consult doctor of my choice even now,” said the writer who is also a physician herself.
“My blood pressure is fluctuating. I am not sure what to do. A wrong news that my visa has been extended is doing the rounds too.”
Y.K Gupta, chief spokesperson of AIIMS, had told IANS Tuesday: “Taslima Nasreen was brought to our hospital Jan 26 night. She was admitted after initial investigation found that she was suffering from suspected drug effect. It could be the side effect of some drug as well.”
He said the 45-year-old author was also “complaining of uneasiness and hypertension”.
The writer was forced to leave Kolkata after a protest by a Muslim organisation against her continued stay in India turned violent Nov 21.
She was taken first to Jaipur and then to New Delhi by the central government and has since been kept in confinement at a safe house.
Magsaysay award winning writer Mahasweta Devi and her friends in Kolkata have started a campaign for Nasreen’s right to live freely in the city.
The exiled author had said recently that she was “very depressed” as she was being “forced to live out of Kolkata after being thrown out” of the city. “I want to go to my home Kolkata where my entire world awaits me,” she had said.
Nasreen, who was recently conferred the Prix Simone de Beauvoir by the French government, was not allowed to receive the award by French President Nicolas Sarkozy when he visited India last week.