Doctors at the exclusive Cimeq hospital in western Havana are accustomed to handling the delicate health problems of Cuba’s communist elite.
It was here last weekend, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt, that they battled for several hours to save the life of the regime’s most important patient, Fidel Castro. Unable to stem intestinal bleeding with drugs, the country’s top surgeons performed an emergency operation on the veteran leader.
To all but a handful of trusted doctors and his closest lieutenants, President Castro’s medical condition has been shrouded in mystery, described as a “state secret” in words attributed to the dictator until, on Friday, the health minister, José Ramón Balaguer, said he was recovering and “will be back with us soon”.
The 79-year-old president is understood to have undergone surgery on Saturday at Cimeq before being wheeled back from the operating theatre to the floor reserved for him and his 75-year-old brother, Raúl. The facility is in the district of Siboney, home to Cuba’s most prestigious scientific research complex and near Gen Castro’s official residence in a tightly guarded military zone.
I’m not a doctor – I just play one on the internet. But if his treatment were in my hands, I’d be tempted to start him on this – because, you just never know when an embolism is about to strike.
Probably want to start with Heparin first, as it is a rapid acting anticoagulant, then Coumadin, which takes several days to reach therapeutic levels. I’m also not a doctor, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn once.
Heparin? Coumadin? Hey! The patient is Castro. Let’s stick with the rat poison.
Holy cow, I just thought of something, would you give an anticoagulant to someone with a bleed? I’ve been had. LOL.
Clever, incisive commentary, Kate. Actually, I’d prefer strychnine…not so subtle, but waaay more satisfying, from an observer’s viewpoint.
What would Jesus do?
“…you just never know when an embolism is about to strike.”
Hmmm…when Kate says creepily ominous stuff like this it often ends up to be unusually prescient.
For example, if Kate posts an article quoting an Israeli as saying “we would never target a hospital”, you can bet the farm that that Israel will indeed attack a hospital within the next 48 hours.
In the same way Kathy Shaidle reads Adam Radwanski to divine received Liberal “wisdom”, I read SDA so I can find out 2 days in advance precisely which war crime Israel plans to commit next.
I know ..i know… forget the warfarin.. i just want a drug that stops the leakage of perfectly good dura matter from ‘ole Bobs’ head…
How to farm in a police state
Terence Corcoran, Financial Post
August 5, 2006
Fidel Castro will die some day, but rest assured the CBC is on standby to make sure the murderous old totalitarian is mourned by Canadians as a benevolent dictator, the imperfect but lovable revolutionary who stuck it to the Americans…
…As if nobody else in the world had ever set a school where none existed before. But never mind, because that bit of whitewashing is nothing compared with David Suzuki’s latest, a two-part propaganda homage to the greatness of Cuba’s agricultural economy….”
Lets not be too sure that the old commie dictator isn’t in some Canadian hospital some where. As a close personal friend of PET, this tyrant would still move to the head of the line.
While you’re at it… who are the top ten public figures everyone would most like to see six feet under?
Don, that’s a pretty easy list to populate. The difficulty is narrowing it down to just ten.
For the record, I am not (and doubtless Don isn’t either) advocating assassination. That being said, if the following folks (not necessarily in this order) were pushing up daisies, they wouldn’t be missed by the rest of humanity:
Fidel AND bro Raul, a two-fer;
the lunatic President of Iran;
Boy Assad, the President of Syria;
Nasrallah, the head cockroach of Hezbollah;
Osama bin Ladin;
Kim Jong Il, the malignant dwarf tyrant of North Korea;
the President and whole damn Politburo of Communist China;
Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan wannabe-new Fidel
Who have I left out?
and every terrorist supporter at every rally in Canada!
The Romanians had the right idea at the time with the Causcescus, simply shoot brutal dictators like the sick dogs they are. Except that there’s no need for a trial because Castro has been only too willing to take credit for brutalizing, jailing or killing Cubans who don’t agree with him. He should be shot.