NCP to arrange best treatment for Everester Kalpana

Bhubaneswar, Jun 18 (UNI) The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) today decided to provide financial support for treatment of critically ill Kalpana Das, the first Oriya woman to have climbed the world's tallest peak, Mount Everest.

NCP General Secretary D P Tripathy, who visited the ailing mountaineer at her residence in Dhenkanal along with party's state unit president Bijaya Mohapatra, told newspersons that she was seriously ill and urgently needed best of medical treatment.

Mr Tripathy said the lady, not only a pride for the state but also for the country for scaling the Mount Everest, was not in a good health condition.

She had a blood clotting on her brain, infection in the lung and erratic blood circulation in one of her legs, which required the best medical attention.

Mr Tripathy said arrangements were being made to fly her to New Delhi's All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS).

Kalpana Das was taken to the SCB Medical College and Hospital where the doctors advised her for admission to AIIMS for further treatment.

But she was not in condition to move to Delhi for treatment. The blood circulation in one of her leg had already stopped while there had been fluid accumulation in her lung and blood clotting inside the brain.

He regretted that despite the claim of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik to provide here free medical treatment, nothing had been done to shift her to a better hospital even though she was critically ill, unable to talk or move from her house.

The NCP would also try to find her a job in the central government so that she would be suitably rehabilitated and look after her health and family.

Kalpana scaled the Everest on May 21. She, however, fell ill at the base camp on May 25 and was evacauted to a hospital in Kathmandu.

Later, she was brought to her native place in Dhenkanal.

UNI DP PC SW UCS1614