MOTHER Teresa remained in intensive care in an Indian nursing home yesterday after suffering heart failure, but the Nobel Peace Prize laureate was conscious and in stable condition, a doctor said.
"At present she is on respiratory support in intensive care," Dr A.K. Bardhan added, saying a team of medical specialists had examined her. "She is fully conscious and stable."
Dr Bardhan said the 85 year old Catholic missionary was admitted to the Woodlands Nursing Home in Calcutta on Tuesday night with a temperature of 103 F, and severe vomiting.
Dr Bardhan described the cardio respiratory complications as heart failure. He said Mother Teresa, fitted with a heart pacemaker in 1989, had suffered heart failure in the past and responded to treatment.
"Last night she developed some cardio respiratory complications which were handled and corrected quickly," he said.
The doctor, part of a team of physicians attending Mother Teresa, said she was given anti heart failure treatment and respiratory support.
Asked to give a prognosis, the doctor said: "It is very difficult to say." The next medical bulletin is not expected until this morning. He offered no more details on her condition or the treatment.
A general physician in New Delhi said heart failure could cover a range of problems, but given Mother Teresa's age and the fact she has a pacemaker could indicate a serious condition.
"In the next 24 or 48 hours we will know if she is responding to treatment and will pull out of this," said the doctor, who asked not to be identified.
"We are all praying for her speedy recovery," said a nun at Mother Teresa's religious order, the Missionaries of Charity, in Calcutta.
The nun, who asked also not to be identified, said all of the order's senior nuns were at the nursing home attending Mother Teresa, who many regard as a living saint. She will be 86 on Tuesday.
Mother Teresa founded a network of missions for the poor and the sick in India's most densely populated city and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979.
Her health began to deteriorate in 1989 when she was fitted with the heart pacemaker. In 1991, she was treated at a California hospital for heart disease and bacterial pneumonia.
In May 1993 she fell in Rome, breaking three ribs. In August, while in New Delhi to receive yet another award, she developed malaria, complicated by her heart and lung problems.
The wrinkled nun of Albanian descent founded the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta in 1949. The order now has nearly 3,000 people ministering to the needy, dying and orphaned in the slums of 200 cities.
Their work includes caring for nearly 7,000 children in 120 homes and arranging 1,500 adoptions each year. In 1988, nearly four million sick people were treated at her 629 mobile clinics.