President due to have invasive medical test - Luncheon says continuation in office will have to be addressed
By Gitanjali Singh
President Janet Jagan's continuing in office may have to be addressed when she returns from medical tests and possible treatment in the US, says Cabinet Secretary and senior member of the PPP, Dr Roger Luncheon. The President was yesterday scheduled to have an angiography--an invasive medical procedure to check the state of the blood vessels leading to her heart--at the Akron City Hospital in Ohio, USA. "I think that [the implications of the President's health for her continuation in office] is a matter the media would be advised on. I would concede that in the context of the concerns that have been expressed out there that it may very well be a matter that will have to be dealt with on her return," Dr Luncheon told reporters at a media briefing at the GTV 11 Studios. Dr Luncheon confirmed that the President had a thallium test done at the Eric Williams Medical Centre (formerly Mount Hope) recently in Trinidad and Tobago and the results of these warranted further checks, which is why she left for the US. He said that the President arrived safely in Ohio and the first phase of her medical investigation, which was non invasive, in the form of a thallium scan was done. "These results are being scrutinised by her doctors and her medical advisers and we should soon be advised what would be the subsequent step in her overall comprehensive medical management in the USA," Dr Luncheon said. A statement from the Office of the President yesterday afternoon said that an angiography was to be carried out yesterday. Dr Luncheon also disclosed that it was the President's wish and her instructions that the specifics about her medical condition not be made public. "However, the results of those evaluations in Trinidad indicated the need to have greater clarification of what they indicated," the Cabinet Secretary, a medical doctor himself, stated. He said the thallium scan in Trinidad was not of the most definitive quality and that is why the President left for Ohio. He indicated that most of the tests already done would be repeated and comprehensively evaluated to point to a definitive position on the President's condition. If not, he said, invasive studies would have to be pursued to get the kind of information that reassures the government that whatever therapeutic interventions are being put in place are "appropriate and timely". He told Stabroek News afterwards that if there was a problem, two options would then be available to the President; angioplasty or a cardiac bypass. Dr Luncheon was also asked what is a cardiac lesion, which was not ruled out in the President's condition and which was only mentioned in a recent Office of the President press release indicating that she was going for overseas evaluation. He said he could not answer the question on the cardiac lesion, but that the bottom line was that something was wrong with the heart. A medical specialist who was contacted said that a cardiac lesion is an abnormality of the heart. Mrs Jagan took ill in the first week of July with chest and body pains and was rushed to the St Joseph's Mercy Hospital. She later went to Trinidad for further tests and earlier this week left for the US.
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