Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez receives chemotherapy for cancer and is in “good spirits”, said vice-president Nicolas Maduro Friday night. The vice-president revealed for the first time that Hugo Chavez, who is at a military hospital in Caracas, receives chemotherapy after being operated for the fourth time in December in Cuba for cancer, and he entered a week ago “a new phase” of “more intense and tough” treatment in this institution.
“His body can bear this treatment and he has a good moral to fight and get treatment,” Maduro told journalists after the service held for Chavez in the new chapel of the hospital. The Venezuelan leader and Cuban doctors decided to start chemotherapy and radiotherapy after an improvement in his condition in January, announced the vice-president.
President underwent a tracheotomy and suffered from respiratory insufficiency after the surgery. Maduro noted that Chavez has decided to return to Venezuela in February, telling his staff: “I will enter a new phase with complementary treatments, more intensive and very difficult, and I want to be in Caracas, therefore you do everything you can for my return in good condition to Caracas.”
Venezuelan president, aged 58, returned from Cuba on February 18, after spending 70 days in Havana where he was operated on 11 December. Maduro explained that Chavez underwent three additional surgeries and he was certain that he will come out of this situation, even though he knew that he might not make it.
Vice-president, dozens of ministers and a daughter of President Chavez, Maria Gabriela, attended together on Friday a service for the health of Venezuelan president at the inauguration of a “chapel of hope,” installed near the entrance to the military hospital in Caracas.
“At the entrance of this emblematic hospital we inaugurate a place to put in the hands of God our beloved President Chavez and all patients who are here in this hospital,” said Father Numa Molina, who officiated the service broadcast on the public television station VTV.
Previously, Maduro and other Venezuelan senior officials denied rumors that Chavez died or is dying. Maduro called for termination of rumors concerning the health of Hugo Chavez, “the most harassed patient in the history of Venezuela.” He accused the international media of carrying “a campaign to destabilize the country, lying about Chavez”.
Reply