Soumitra Chatterjee's condition grave; on life support

Chatterjee's condition remained unchanged for the past 24 hours

soumitra-salil Soumitra Chatterjee | Salil Bera

The condition of legendary actor Soumitra Chatterjee remained grave on Saturday and he is on life support in the city hospital, where he was admitted over a month ago.

One of the doctors attending on him said Chatterjee's condition remained unchanged for the past 24 hours.

"He is on different life support systems ... It seems that our almost 40 days' fight is not enough to make him well," he said.

"Let's all pray he gets better, but it seems unlikely he will have a favourable outcome. We have informed all the family members and with a saddened heart they have accepted that nothing less than miracle can get him out of this situation," the doctor said in a bulletin.

Chatterjee, he said, seems to be not responding to the current therapies. "His situation is really grave and critical".

On Friday, the neurological condition of Chatterjee deteriorated and an EEG had shown that there is very little activity in the brain, the doctor had said.

His oxygenation requirement had gone up and his kidney function had deteriorated, the doctor had said.

The 85-year-old thespian had undergone the first plasmapheresis on Thursday and tracheostomy on Wednesday.

A Dadasaheb Phalke awardee, Chatterjee had debuted in Satyajit Rays masterpiece Apur Sansar and acted in 14 films of the maestro. He had the rare distinction of working for other famed directors of Bengal Mrinal Sen, Tapan Sinha and Tarun Mazumdar.

He was admitted to the hospital on on October 6 after testing positive for COVID-19.

He later tested negative for the infection but COVID-19 encephalopathy set in and various other complications surfaced.