PM is making 'excellent progress', say doctors

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is making 'excellent progress' following a successful coronary by-pass surgery at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi.

The 76-year-old prime minister "continues to maintain excellent progress. This morning he had breakfast with his wife and daughters," PM's media adviser Deepak Sandhu said.

"Seeing the prime minister's recovery, we have decided to withdraw the ICU status of his room by late afternoon," Dr K S Reddy, the PM's personal physician, told PTI.

The room in which Singh is recuperating had been upgraded to an intensive care unit with the installation of sophisticated monitoring equipment.

Reddy said Singh has been given solid food and only family members are being allowed to meet him.

Dr Ramakant Panda, a specialist cardiac surgeon from Mumbai's Asian Heart Institute, who had led the team of doctors during the over 11-hour-long operation, had on Monday indicated that Singh may not require intensive care beyond Wednesday, given his quick progress.

However, the doctors are yet to decide on the date of the PM's discharge from the hospital.

After his surgery on Saturday, the prime minister was initially given a liquid diet, then semi-solid and finally solid food, according to the doctors attending on him.

Singh is able to sit in his bed and has been talking to his family members -- the only people being allowed to meet him --said the dcotors.

"We are not allowing any visitors," Reddy said, adding that a decision on whether the prime minister would continue to stay in the same room or move to another has not been taken yet.

Reddy said the doctors would have to also decide as to when Singh could be made to walk within his room.