Cuban hunger striker rushed to hospital
BY JUAN O. TAMAYO
jtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com
Cuban dissident Guillermo Fariñas underwent emergency surgery Friday to
remove his gall bladder, inflamed as a result of his 135-day hunger
strike earlier this year to demand the release of political prisoners.
The surgery was successful but his recovery is uncertain because of the
deterioration he suffered during the protest, his mother, Alicia
Hernández, told El Nuevo Herald.
``His status is grave because of everything that's happened, because he
was not eating,'' Hernández said by telephone from Fariñas' home in the
central city of Santa Clara.
Fariñas, 48, a psychologist and independent journalist jailed several
times for his dissident activities, stopped eating and drinking on Feb.
24, one day after political prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo died from his
own lengthy hunger strike.
Fariñas demanded the release of 26 other political prisoners in bad
health, and abandoned his protest July 8, a day after Cuba's Catholic
church announced the government would free 52 jailed dissidents.
Zapata's death and Fariñas' strike focused world attention on the plight
of political prisoners in Cuba.
A former member of an elite military unit who fought in Angola, Fariñas
dropped 50 pounds and suffered several health crises during 23 previous
hunger strikes, including a seven-month protest to demand Internet access.
During his latest hunger strike, the first in which he also refused
liquids, he was hospitalized in Santa Clara and suffered several
infections from the catheter through which he received nourishment.
Fariñas emerged from the hospital July 29, looking emaciated and with
more health complications.
He has dangerous blood clots in his neck and an arm and has been
suffering from severe vomiting, diarrhea and high fevers for the past
month, said his mother, who is a nurse.
Fariñas woke up Friday with violent pains and vomiting, she added, and
was rushed into surgery after ultrasound tests showed inflammations of
his gall bladder, with several stones, as well as his pancreas.
Surgeons removed his gall bladder but found three more stones in his
bile ducts, the result of his refusal to eat or drink for four and a
half months, Hernández said.
Fariñas had not come out of his anesthesia as of Friday evening, his
mother added, and doctors were concerned that the bile ducts could
rupture under pressure from the stones.
``This is serious because of the state of his health, deteriorated by
the position that he maintained during his hunger strike, at the end
winding up in a very delicate state,'' Hernández said.
At the start of Fariñas' latest hunger strike, Cuban leader Raúl Castro
vowed that he would not bow to the ``blackmail.'' But as the protest
continued, he was checked into a state hospital and received numerous
intravenous feedings.
An article in the newspaper Granma, which seldom reports on the
activities of dissidents, detailed all the procedures that doctors were
doing to keep him alive.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/09/03/1807485/cuban-hunger-striker-rushed-to.html
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