Argentines fret as leader has brain operation

Download

Doctors prepared to drill into Argentine President Cristina Fernandez's skull on Tuesday morning to siphon out blood that is pressing on her brain two months after she suffered an unexplained head injury.

Experts described the procedure as generally low risk and almost always having positive results, but the surgery on the 60-year-old leader worried many Argentines, who have struggled to imagine their country with anyone else at its center.

Fernandez was diagnosed with "chronic subdural hematoma" or fluid trapped between the skull and brain. This can happen when the tiny veins that connect the brain's surface with its outermost covering, or dura, tear and leak blood. As people age, it can happen with a head injury so mild they don't remember it.

In the president's case, doctors initially prescribed a month's rest, but decided surgery was required after she complained of numbness and weakness in her upper left arm on Sunday.

While messages of sympathy poured in, the president's critics were questioning the secrecy that has surrounded her health recently. Her condition was announced in a three-paragraph statement on Saturday after she spent more than nine hours in the hospital, attributing the injury to a blow to her head on Aug 12. It gave no details on how the injury happened, and government officials declined to comment.

That would have been the day after primary elections showed a significant drop in support for her party's congressional candidates despite her intensive campaigning.

Fernandez, who followed her highly popular husband into the presidency, is the dominant figure in Argentine politics after nearly six years in office, and now she'll be off the campaign trail just three weeks before elections that could loosen her party's hold on the Congress.

About the broadcaster:

Anne Ruisi is an editor at China Daily online with more than 30 years of experience as a newspaper editor and reporter. She has worked at newspapers in the U.S., including The Birmingham News in Alabama and City Newspaper of Rochester, N.Y.