At around 3 pm local time, 18:00 GMT, Chile’s former dictator is undergoing heart by-pass surgery. An hour early, his five children arrived at the Santiago Military Hospital to give their go ahead on the surgery.
In 2001, Pinochet was declared mentally incapacitated, so it is his children who have legal rights over his father’s decision.
This morning Military Hospital Dr. Juan Ignacio Vergara said Pinochet is in stable but grave condition.
He said Pinochet suffered a heart attack in the early hours of the morning. His bedside doctor treated him on site and determined he be sent to hospital. An ambulance that is parked in Pinochet’s home rushed him to hospital in under 7 minutes.
Dr. Vergara said doctors performed an angioplasty procedure to re-establish irrigation to heart arteries. That is the insertion of a balloon or tool to remove blockage from the arteries and allow normal blood irrigation to the heart muscle
He said fluids to Pinochet’s lungs were under control, but it appears the fluids have mot left his lungs, requiring the by-pass surgery to re-establish proper heart function.
Meanwhile in the Presidential Palace, La Moneda, Government spokesman Ricardo Lagos Weber, said the government does not make statement on people who are ill and under treatment. Asked if the government would hold state funeral, Lagos Weber said it is of bad taste speaking of that when people are alive.
It is further wait-and-see time, because heart surgery can take hours.
