SANTIAGO —
Former Uruguayan President José Mujica, diagnosed with esophageal cancer last April, was admitted to a Montevideo hospital on Thursday for the third time in less than two weeks.
Dr. Raquel Pannone, the former president’s personal physician, told AP that Mujica was hospitalized at Casmu in the Uruguayan capital due to digestive problems that led to dehydration, and that he will undergo a series of tests throughout the day.
“We are doing tests and improving as much as possible,” said the doctor.
Although his condition is not serious, Pannone later said that Mujica will remain in hospital for “a few more days” in order to stabilize him as much as possible.
“We started rehydrating him intravenously, which had an almost immediate effect and he is better than he was three hours ago,” he said at a press conference.
According to the doctor, the fact that Mujica’s hospital stay is extended “does not mean that his condition is more serious or that his prognosis is bad,” but rather it is due to the fact that he can fully recover before returning home.
“If we manage to make that happen and his general condition improves, he will return home to continue rehabilitating and gain a little more strength,” he added.
Pannone recalled that the discomfort felt by Mujica is a consequence of the radiotherapy treatment he underwent to treat a malignant tumor in the esophagus, which ended up causing fibrosis.
He took the opportunity to clarify that, although he had previously said that there are “strong convictions that the cancer has been cured,” at this time there is “clinical evidence” that it is in “a stage of remission due to the treatment.”
“We cannot yet say that the patient has been definitively cured at that time, but we do know that there is no clinical evidence that the tumor is present,” he added.
Last week, Mujica, 89, had already been admitted to a health centre for the same problem after having difficulty eating following the sessions.
On that occasion, Pannone explained that “the consequences of radiotherapy made it more difficult for him to eat and drink liquids,” since he suffers from a kidney disease. “Radiotherapy is like a burn and we have to get the tissue to recover. At 90 years old everything is slower, including tissue recovery. This makes it bothersome for him when he eats and that is why he eats less,” he said.
Mujica announced his own diagnosis in late April and, a week later, began treatment with daily radiotherapy sessions.
The former guerrilla was in charge of Uruguay between 2010 and 2015 and his government stood out for its broad social agenda. The leader from Campeche retired from the Senate and from politics in 2020, although he never stopped advocating for the causes he defends and remained active in the ranks of the leftist Frente Amplio.
His last public appearance was on August 27 at a political rally at his party headquarters, hours after he left the hospital.
