Daya Master discharged from hospital in Colombo

[TamilNet, Sunday, 16 July 2006, 06:34 GMT]
Daya Master, the Kilinochchi based media coordinator of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who was admitted to the private Appollo Hospital in Narahenpitiya near Colombo with heart ailment, left for Kilinochchi on Saturday at 8:30 a.m., after doctors cleared him fit enough following satisfactory coronary angiography tests, hospital sources said. Several members of the Sinhala ultra-nationalist JVP led National Movement Against Terrorism (NMAT) Friday held a protest demonstration in front of Appollo hospital, calling for the arrest of the ailing Daya Master under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA).

Following angiography tests, the doctors concluded that Daya Master did not need a heart by-pass operation or any other surgical intervention to treat his condition, hospital sources said.

Daya Master, who was discharged from the hospital, was accompanied by the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) members on his return journey.

Meanwhile, several members of the Sinhala nationalist extremist organisations under the banner of NMAT, Friday at 11:15 a.m., held a protest demonstration in front of the Appollo hospital calling for the arrest of Daya Master under the prevention of terrorism act.

Protestors who staged the demonstration for 45 minutes, carried placards against the LTTE.

Heart by-pass operation, which was not needed for Daya Master, is a surgical procedure that reroutes or by-passes blood around clogged arteries, with veins taken from the patient, and is only carried out on patients who generally have blockages of at least 50%, though medical opinion varies on this, medical sources said.

Coronary angiography test, that was carried out on Daya Master, involves inserting a very small tube (catheter) into a blood vessel in the groin or arm, and injecting a special dye through the blood vessel, to check for any blockages in the tiny blood vessels, that supply blood to the heart muscle.