MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Lugo still in serious condition after surgery

One more operation remains to be performed, according to medical reports from Asunción

Former Paraguayan leftwing President Fernando Lugo underwent surgery Thursday and remains in intensive care in serious condition at an Asunción Sanatorium, it was reported.

“They managed to drain the hematoma, the bleeding he had, they left him a drain and at this moment he is already in therapy rooms, stable with a reserved prognosis, but at least he was able to overcome the first part, which was the surgery”, Lugo's fellow Senator Esperanza Martínez, a physician and a former Health Minister, explained.

The 71-year-old left-wing former Catholic bishop suffered Wednesday a cerebrovascular accident: the rupture of one of the blood vessels that irrigate the brain or an interruption of the arrival of nutrients to the organ, which is the most sensitive to a decrease in the oxygen brought by the blood.

One more operation remains to be performed, according to medical reports from Asunción. The bleeding in Lugo's brain had increased and was expanding, Lugo's colleague on the Senate Jorge Querey told reporters. Querey is also Lugo's personal doctor.

Thursday's operation was successfully, but the planned catheterization could not be performed for the moment due to the after-effects of the operation itself. “It was not possible to finish the endovascular process through the

catheter because he had a hematoma and the area where it is was not decompressed,” explained Martinez.

According to the doctors, the origin of the problem was “a congenital malformation” that worsened and produced both the bleeding and the hematoma that compresses the entry to the place where the stroke originated.

The first symptoms were noticed last weekend in Colombia, during the inauguration of Colombian President Gustavo Petro. Back in Paraguay, Lugo had “what people normally know as an epileptic seizure,” according to Querey, who is also a pulmonologist and therapist.

Then the ischemic stroke was detected in the back of his brain. For that reason, he was admitted to the San Roque private sanatorium in Asunción, where he underwent surgery and is still in intensive care.

The stroke was in no way linked to the cancer detected in 2010 and for which Lugo underwent surgery in 2012.

Lugo ruled between 2008 and 2012 when he was impeached from office. He was the only president not stemming from the right-wing Colorado Party since 1954.

Read also: Former Paraguayan President Lugo in ICU