CUTTACK: Noted English poet Jayanta Mahapatra has been admitted to SCB Medical College and Hospital here. Sources said the 94-year-old suffered from upset stomach and fainted in a washroom while attending a programme in Baripada on Monday. He was rushed to SCB Medical and Hospital in the evening where he is undergoing treatment at the Medicine ICU.“He is responding to treatment and his condition has improved. He is conscious and communicating,” said Head of the Medicine Department Jayant Panda.
A three-member medical team comprising experts from Neurology and Endocrinology constituted under Panda’s chairmanship is monitoring Mahapatra’s heath condition round-the-clock. Panda said Mahapatra would be discharged after further improvement in his health condition.
A resident of Tinikonia Bagicha in Cuttack, Mahapatra’s poems like Indian Summer and Hunger are regarded as classics of modern Indian English literature. His collections of poems include ‘A Rain of Rites’, ‘Life Signs’ and ‘A Whiteness of Bone’.Mahapatra is the first Indian writer in English to receive the Sahitya Akademi award in 1981 for ‘Relationship’. In June last year, Jayanta Mahapatra was hospitalised after testing positive for the novel coronavirus.