Critically injured actor Arundhathi needs help financially to foot hospital bills: Family

Bengaluru: Actor Arundhathi Nair, who was critically injured six days ago and is struggling for life, needs help financially for her surgeries, said fellow actor and close friend Remyaa Joseph on Wednesday.

Arundhathi was returning home on a bike with her brother on March 14 night when they were hit by an auto near their house in Thiruvananthapuram, Remyaa told PTI. They were immediately taken to Ananthapuri Hospital where her brother was later discharged with minor injuries, she said.

Despite the news going viral, no one from the Tamil industry has come forward to help the actor, said Remyaa, who is known for her roles in Tamil serials such as ‘Thendral Vandhu Ennai Thodum’ and ‘Eeramana Rojave’.

“Arundhathi has done five films in Tamil as the female lead. She is so severely injured that till yesterday the doctors suspected she could be brain dead. Yet, no one from the Tamil film industry or its nadigar sangam contacted us. I know it is not mandatory, but it would have been nice if someone had called and asked how she is doing even, forget about monetary help,” said Remyaa.

Although she was born and brought up in Thiruvananthapuram, Arundhathi has so far acted in only one Malayalam film and yet all it took was one call for the Malayalam industry to pitch in, added Remyaa. Arundhathi’s sister Arathy told PTI that when family and friends started a fundraising campaign for the injured actor, many people started trolling them.

“My sister is so severely injured that she is the priority at the Ananthapuri Hospital for the last couple of days specially. And yet, many people are saying online that this is all a scam. We had to deal with that kind of negativity when we are all running around in the hospital,” said Arathy, an aspiring actor who is now working for an educational organisation in Bengaluru. Remyaa said the problem started when another Malayalam actor and friend, Gopika Anil started the fundraiser on her page.

“As we were in the hospital, she took the initiative to start the fundraising. Arundhathi is the sole breadwinner of her family. They are not a well to do family and require financial help in clearing up the medical bills to treat her further. A few of her actor friends are chipping in, but we can only do so much, it’s not like we earn in crores,” said Remyaa.

According to her, Arundhathi had arm and collar bone fractures too and the surgery for fixing them alone cost the family nearly Rs 5 lakh. Till the day before yesterday, there was no signal from her brain, but yesterday there was a slight movement in left cornea, said Arathy, adding that doctors are now preparing for a brain surgery. “I can’t even imagine how much the hospital will charge when they must finally fix her brain. We are waiting for her to stabilise a bit to do further operations, she already had two cardiac arrests,” added Remyaa.

Remyaa said they had to pull out the fundraiser campaign from the social media and instead circulate it among a closed group of friends and family, as people started calling the G-Pay number, with weird questions and requests.

“Can you imagine how insensitive we have become to call a number of someone who has their loved one admitted in a hospital, and who is fighting for her life, and ask for contact details of other celebrities? That’s how bad some of the calls were,” said Remyaa.