Doctors rule out bypass for ailing Pinochet
Doctors tonight ruled out bypass surgery on Chile’s former dictator Augusto Pinochet, who is fighting for his life at a military hospital after suffering a major heart attack.
Dr Juan Ignacio Vergara, a member of the medical team treating the 91-year-old, said bypass surgery was ruled out after an angioplasty performed in the morning to clear a heart artery obstruction “allowed improvement in his condition”.
“No bypass has been performed and we expect no open heart surgery will be necessary,” Vergara said tonight, explaining that such surgery involved extremely high risks for someone of Pinochet’s age.
“There is a trend towards improvement,” he said. “He is conscious, he communicates with us and with his family.”
But Vergara made clear Pinochet’s condition continued to be serious “and the next 24 to 48 hours will be critical to see whether other complications appear”.
He said an accumulation of liquid in Pinochet’s lungs “was a secondary problem that has been solved”.
Pinochet had received last rites, said his spokesman, retired General Guillermo Garin.
Pinochet, who was under house arrest on human rights charges, was rushed to the hospital from his suburban Santiago home at about 2am local time (5am GMT) today, accompanied by his wife, Lucia Hiriart, after the heart attack.
Pinochet’s son Marco Antonio said an emergency angioplasty procedure “virtually rescued him from death”.
“We are now in the hands of God and of the doctors. My father is in very bad condition,” he said.
The heart attack – which a close associate, retired General Luis Cortes, described as Pinochet’s “most serious health condition so far” – came a week after Pinochet turned 91, an occasion he used to take “full political responsibility” for the actions of his 1973-90 dictatorship, which carried out thousands of political killings, widespread torture and illegal detentions.
As the news of the heart attack spread, some 50 Pinochet supporters, most of them women, gathered in front of the hospital, some holding portraits of the former ruler.
“He’s like a father to me, and we all owe him so much,” said Julieta Aguilar, who held a small bronze bust of Pinochet.
Presidential spokesman Ricardo Lagos Weber said the government was closely following the situation.
Pinochet’s health has deteriorated in recent years. He has used a pacemaker for several years and was diagnosed with mild dementia caused by several strokes. He also suffers from diabetes and arthritis.
His faltering health has helped Pinochet avoid trial for human rights abuses committed during his regime, as judges dismissed cases based on his condition in at least two cases in recent years. His opponents have often argued that he exaggerates his health problems.
“He is hospitalised every time he faces an indictment. That is why we have doubts this time, too,” human rights lawyer Hiram Villagra told Radio Bio Bio.
Last week, Pinochet was indicted and put under house arrest for the execution of two bodyguards of Salvador Allende, the freely-elected Marxist president who was toppled in the 1973 coup in which Pinochet took power. The Santiago Court of Appeals was due to rule tomorrow on his appeal.
