MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Uruguay: Pepe Mujica recovering after surgery to remove fishbone from his throat

The case was not serious but Mujica's other health and age conditions called for extreme precautions to be taken

Former Uruguayan President José “Pepe” Mujica was recovering well following an emergency procedure to remove a fishbone from his throat, according to medical sources.

The procedure was completed after 10.30 pm Tuesday. “The foreign body was a small fishbone fragment that hurt as it passed,” said the former head of state's personal physician, Raquel Pannone.

The doctors have admitted the case was not very serious but due to Mujica's age -he will be turning 86 next month- and his ineligibility for anti-covid vaccination because of a disease he has dragged on for years, extreme precautions were needed.

“An ulcer was found in the mucosa of the oesophagus,” the doctor who operated on it, Andrés Munyo, was quoted as telling the Buenos Aires daily La Nación.

Mujica's wife, Senator -and former Vice President- Lucia Topolansky, had cooked a fish dish on Monday and Mujica had swallowed a fishbone that got stuck in his oesophagus, making it difficult for him to breathe.

Topolansky admitted she had cooked the meal herself. “Yesterday he was eating and he felt that he was eating a boneless fish fillet. I check them but these things happen,” she was quoted by the Montevideo daily El Observador.

But given the persistence of the discomfort, Mujica consulted his personal doctor, who recommended that he have a soda and wait until Tuesday to see how things evolved.

Topolansky said that when the former president woke up on Tuesday “he still had the same pain” in his stomach.