Trinidad: Sat Maharaj suffers stroke, in critical condition

(Trinidad Guardian) The Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al of the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha, Sat­narayan Maharaj is in crit­i­cal con­di­tion at the in­ten­sive care unit of the Med­ical As­so­ciates pri­vate hos­pi­tal in St Joseph.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that Ma­haraj suf­fered a stroke and was ward­ed at the hos­pi­tal since No­vem­ber 1.

Sources at Med­ical As­so­ciates, have ex­plained that the Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al of the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha is on a ven­ti­la­tor and the doc­tors were try­ing to tran­si­tion him to oxy­gen ther­a­py yes­ter­day morn­ing. How­ev­er, their ef­forts were to no avail.

GML has learnt that Ma­haraj’s eyes were not open­ing and this was the rea­son the doc­tors were keep­ing him on the ven­ti­la­tor.

Ac­cord­ing to the med­ical staff at the hos­pi­tal, when he was ad­mit­ted Ma­haraj was un­able to move his hands or feet. How­ev­er, med­ical staff con­firmed that his hands and legs were now mov­ing slight­ly on his right side.

The staff in­di­cat­ed that Ma­haraj was grad­u­al­ly get­ting bet­ter, but they could not say whether he will be out of the hos­pi­tal soon.

Sources have ex­plained that the doc­tors would like to per­form a CT scan on Ma­haraj when he comes off the ven­ti­la­tor in or­der to come to a con­clu­sion on his cur­rent state.

In an in­ter­view with GML, Ma­haraj’s son Vi­jay, con­firmed that his fa­ther had suf­fered a stroke. Re­fer­ring to so­cial me­dia posts that Ma­haraj was at death’s doors Vi­jay said, “There’s a lot of in­sin­u­a­tions tak­ing place out there.”

He con­tin­ued, “I have my own me­dia house, we will be giv­ing an up­date to­mor­row on Mr Ma­haraj’s con­di­tion.”

He told GML “Very briefly, af­ter the grad­u­a­tion of Lak­sh­mi Girls’ he start­ed hav­ing breath­ing dif­fi­cul­ties. I took him up to Med­ical As­so­ciates and un­for­tu­nate­ly Mr Ma­haraj had a stroke.”

The fac­tors that should be con­sid­ered, ac­cord­ing to Vi­jay, is that “Ma­haraj has had surgery on two oc­ca­sions. He had a valve re­place­ment and a lot of med­ical is­sues over the years.” Vi­jay al­so not­ed that his fa­ther had been af­flict­ed with the virus.

Vi­jay said “He is down with a flu virus and he did get a stroke which has caused some com­pli­ca­tions.”

He con­tin­ued, “At his age, he’s had heart surgery on two oc­ca­sions, he’s di­a­bet­ic and as you can imag­ine with an 88-year-old, I’ll leave that to your imag­i­na­tion – all the var­i­ous things that can go at that par­tic­u­lar junc­ture.”

Vi­jay said that he is not in de­nial of any­thing. He ex­plained that his fa­ther is a pub­lic fig­ure and he has “to be treat­ed in that man­ner.”

Ma­haraj’s son ar­gued his fa­ther “has the best doc­tors in T&T look­ing af­ter him.” He ex­pressed that the doc­tors will give an up­date this morn­ing on the im­prove­ment or de­te­ri­o­ra­tion in his con­di­tion, “as the case may be.”

He not­ed that there have been many com­ments on so­cial me­dia with which he will not en­gage and will not be is­su­ing any press re­lease, how­ev­er, lat­er to­day, he would be with the Pres­i­dent-Gen­er­al and the Dhar­ma­charya on his ra­dio sta­tion. He added that the an­nounce­ment will be made af­ter lunch be­cause he (Vi­jay Ma­haraj) will be meet­ing with the doc­tors in the morn­ing.

Re­spond­ing to ru­mours about a takeover, in the event of his fa­ther’s pass­ing, Vi­jay said, “there is no takeover tak­ing place, that word is quite deroga­to­ry.”

He ex­plained, “every year we have a con­fer­ence in Sep­tem­ber, where it (a po­si­tion) has to be rat­i­fied by the mem­ber­ship of the Ma­ha Sab­ha.”

Vi­jay ex­plained that he will be act­ing Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al un­til Sep­tem­ber next year if any­thing were to hap­pen to his fa­ther. He not­ed that a takeover can­not take place be­cause ac­cord­ing to the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s con­sti­tu­tion he will im­me­di­ate­ly act in the po­si­tion of his fa­ther.

He af­firmed, “No meet­ings are be­ing had about takeovers, there is noth­ing to take over, it’s au­to­mat­ic in our con­sti­tu­tion.” V Ma­haraj ar­gued that ru­mour-mon­ger­ing does not mat­ter to him at this junc­ture. He said that his fa­ther still main­tains his po­si­tion as sec­re­tary-gen­er­al.