Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Botched Cuban care and Chávez’s deceit may have worsened the Venezuelan’s cancer

Botched Cuban care and Chávez's deceit may have worsened the
Venezuelan's cancer
By Roger Noriega
November 22, 2011, 10:54 am

Fidel Castro's vastly over-rated healthcare system may finally have
achieved something noteworthy: killing Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez.
According to an investigative report authored by Leonardo Coutinho and
Duda Teixeira that appeared in Brazil's premier newsmagazine Veja on
Saturday (November 19), Cuban doctors at that country's premier medical
facility bungled the initial treatment of Chávez's prostate cancer and
may have rushed him to an early grave.

The Brazilian report, which quotes several of that country's cancer
specialists and urologists, delivers a damning assessment of the Cuban care:

[In July 2011] Chavez was hospitalized in Havana [at the Center for
Medical and Surgical Research (CIMEQ)] to remove the prostate tumor.
Surgery, not recommended for cases of neoplasia in this gland with
metastasis, may have been a very serious medical error that accelerated
the spread of cancer. A second surgery was carried out…. From that
moment on, European physicians with imported equipment directed the
therapy. The Cubans were relegated to the role of observers. [Emphasis
added]

The Veja report cites Brazilian medical specialists to describe the
substandard equipment and treatment at CIMEQ, a facility reserved for
the dictatorship's elite and dollar-paying tourists.

A second fatal decision was self-inflicted. Chávez must have known from
the beginning that his cancer was terminal, because he opted to continue
receiving treatment in Cuba in order to keep his country in the dark
about his true condition. For example, Veja reveals for the first time
that foreign minister Nicolas Maduro traveled to Brazil in early July to
consult with that country's leading oncologists at the Sîrio-Lebanese
Hospital of São Paulo. Rather than transfer to that renowned Brazilian
facility, where the current and previous presidents of Brazil have been
treated for cancer, Chávez preferred to risk care in Cuba to keep his
people from knowing the truth.

Will Sicko movie-maker Michael Moore return to Cuba to interview the
miracle workers who gave Chávez the care he deserved? Now that's a
sequel worth seeing.

http://blog.american.com/2011/11/botched-cuban-care-and-chavez%E2%80%99s-deceit-may-have-worsened-the-venezuelan%E2%80%99s-cancer/

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