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HAVANA - Cuba is on tenterhooks over Fidel Castro's fragile health, as residents of the communist island await a visiting Spanish doctor's diagnosis on whether their leader needs additional surgery.
Officials in Madrid confirmed yesterday that a Spanish surgeon had been dispatched to Cuba to treat Castro, 80, who has not been seen in public for five months. Few medical updates have been made public since his reported intestinal surgery.
"The Cuban Government decided to ask one of our top professionals to care for its President," said Manuel Lamela, health councillor for Madrid's regional government.
"When a Government asks for help or collaboration, health officials respond."
A Spanish newspaper report identified the physician as Jose Luis Garcia Sabrido, head of surgery at Madrid's Gregorio Maranon Hospital.
Spain's Cadena Ser radio described him as a well-known specialist in digestive problems.
Castro's brother, interim leader Raul Castro, has said the Cuban leader's recovery continues, but his continued absence from the public eye has fuelled widespread speculation that he may be seriously ill and even near death.
United States Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte told the Washington Post this month that Castro was likely to survive "months, not years".
News reports last week said the Cuban leader was too ill to receive his friend, Nobel Prize-winning Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who was on the island for nearly a month.
"Fidel wasn't able to meet with him personally, which never would have happened in the past," wrote the Colombian weekly magazine Semana.
Garcia Marquez is the author of the classic One Hundred Years of Solitude and a close friend of Castro. "The fact that he was unable to meet with Gabo [the writer's nickname] has been interpreted as a sign that things have worsened," the magazine wrote.
Castro, who has ruled Cuba since 1959, has not been seen in public since July.
- AFP
