Watch Live: Congressional Hearing on IRS Scandal

Live Now on TheBlaze Radio: ‘The Buck Sexton Show’

World

Venezuela VP: ‘New Complications’ in Hugo Chavez Cancer Treatment

Dec. 30, 2012 11:32pm Erica Ritz

Venezuela Vice President: New Complications in Hugo Chavez Cancer Treatment

Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez holds up a miniature copy of Venezuela’s constitution during a press conference at the Miraflores palace in Caracas, Venezuela, Tuesday, Oct. 9, 2012. (Photo:AP)

(TheBlaze/AP) — Hugo Chavez has suffered “new complications” following his cancer surgery in Cuba and is in “delicate” condition, his vice president said Sunday.

Vice President Nicolas Maduro spoke with a solemn expression in a televised address from Havana, saying he had spoken with Chavez and that the president sent greetings to his homeland. Maduro did not give details about the complications, which he said came amid a respiratory infection.

“Several minutes ago we were with President Chavez. We greeted each other and he himself referred to these complications,” Maduro said, reading from a prepared statement. Maduro was seated alongside Chavez’s eldest daughter, Rosa, and son-in-law Jorge Arreaza, as well as Attorney General Cilia Flores.

The vice president’s comments suggest an increasingly difficult fight for the ailing president. The Venezuelan leader has not been seen or heard from since undergoing his fourth cancer-related surgery Dec. 11, and government officials have said he might not return in time for his scheduled Jan. 10 inauguration for a new six-year term.

“The president gave us precise instructions so that, after finishing the visit, we would tell the (Venezuelan) people about his current health condition,” Maduro said. “President Chavez’s state of health continues to be delicate, with complications that are being attended to, in a process not without risks.”

Maduro held up a copy of a newspaper confirming that his message was recorded on Sunday.

Venezuela’s Vice-President Nicolas Maduro gestures as he arrives for the 8th anniversary of the ALBA group in Caracas, Venezuela, Saturday, Dec. 15, 2012. (Photo: AP)

“Thanks to his physical and spiritual strength, Comandante Chavez is facing this difficult situation,” Maduro said.

Maduro said he had met various times with Chavez’s medical team and relatives. He said he would remain in Havana “for the coming hours” but didn’t specify how long.

Maduro, who arrived in Havana on Saturday for a sudden and unexpected trip, is the highest ranking Venezuelan official to visit Chavez since the surgery.

Before Chavez left for Cuba, he acknowledged risks in the operation and designated Maduro as his successor, telling supporters they should vote for the vice president if a new presidential election was necessary.

Chavez said his cancer had come back despite previous surgeries, chemotherapy and radiation treatment. He has been fighting an undisclosed type of pelvic cancer since June 2011.

Medical experts say that it’s common for patients who have undergone major surgeries to suffer respiratory infections and that how a patient fares can vary widely from a quick recovery in a couple of days to a fight for life on a respirator.

Maduro’s latest update differed markedly from last Monday, when he had said he received a phone call from the president and that Chavez was up and walking.

Maduro expressed faith that Chavez’s “immense will to live and the care of the best medical specialists will help our president successfully fight this new battle.” He concluded his message saying: “Long live Chavez.”

Supporters of Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez rally in Caracas on December 9, 2012. (Photo: AFP/Getty Images)

Chavez has been in office since 1999 and was re-elected in October, three months after he had announced that his latest tests showed he was cancer-free.

Opposition politicians have criticized a lack of detailed information about Chavez’s condition, and last week repeated their demands for a full medical report.

Information Minister Ernesto Villegas defended the government’s handling of the situation, saying during a televised panel discussion on Sunday night that Chavez “has told the truth in his worst moments” throughout his presidency.

Villegas said a government-organized New Year’s Eve concert in a downtown Caracas plaza had been canceled, and he urged Venezuelans to pray for Chavez.

Chavez’s daughter Maria, who has been with the president since his surgery, said in a message on her Twitter account: “Thank you people of Venezuela. Thank you people of the world. You and your love have always been our greatest strength! God is with us! We love you!”

Allies of the president also responded on Twitter, repeating the phrase: “Chavez lives and will triumph.”

–

In CONTROL, Glenn Beck presents a passionate, fact-based case for guns that reveals why gun control isn’t really about controlling guns at all; it’s about controlling us. Find out more HERE.

Back to The Blaze »

Comments (34)

paulusmaximus
Posted on December 31, 2012 at 5:12pm
Like so many socialist dictators he is only the figure head of the 6 headed monster

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
shorelineliz
Posted on December 31, 2012 at 3:34pm
Perhaps the next “complication ” would involve a pine box, six feet of dirt and numerous shovels.

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
elvascon
Posted on December 31, 2012 at 9:27am
Doctors from South Florida traveled to Cuba on humanitarian trip to help Venezuelan doctors find the problem. Latest news is Chavez has an impacted colon preventing stool from exiting out of his sh-t hole. Apparently the fecal impaction is due to an excessive amount of used condoms stuck in his large intestine. Let’s hope doctors can remove the condoms before the crap begins to flow out of his mouth. Oops!!! Too late.

Report this comment
Log in to ReplyReply
- joey g
  Posted on December 31, 2012 at 12:20pm
  hahahahhaahahahahahahahhahahahahahh
  
  Report this comment
- shorelineliz
  Posted on December 31, 2012 at 3:32pm
  That is a good theory. However, I think the probable cause might be a huge volume of unread mini blue Venezuelan Constitutions crammed up there as he is holding one of them up in the photo above seemingly to let everyone know that this has been his toilet paper for the last 50 years.
  
  Report this comment
SpankDaMonkey
Posted on December 31, 2012 at 7:23am
.
I wonder if Hugo’s condition is contagious? We should send Barry down there to see how he’s doing just in case…….

Report this comment
Log in to ReplyReply
- lynnissmart
  Posted on December 31, 2012 at 8:55am
  Love it! Just thinking the same thing more or less!!!! Probably more!
  
  Report this comment
- yougottabekidding
  Posted on December 31, 2012 at 9:25am
  Lets send Morgan to do an interview!!
  
  Report this comment
- joey g
  Posted on December 31, 2012 at 12:21pm
  heard che was dieing…yeauyeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa good riddence to a real pos
  
  Report this comment
ares338
Posted on December 31, 2012 at 7:21am
Just read The Communist Manifesto Hugo…..It will comfort you in your last moments!

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
ATimeFor
Posted on December 31, 2012 at 7:09am
Death is the best thing that can happen to a dictator.

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
Hoax And Chains
Posted on December 31, 2012 at 6:24am
Wait a minute. He’s taking advantage of the free health care system in Cuba and he’s developed complications? How is that possible? I thought government run health care was the answer! Gee, and all America has to show for our health care are higher cancer recovery rates. We can’t have that. Cuban health care… coming soon to cities and towns across America.

Report this comment
Log in to ReplyReply
- Shamrock241
  Posted on December 31, 2012 at 8:28am
  That’s what Hilary wants for us but i still see people on this site hoping she will be ok, She is one of the many enemies of true patriots of America who love this country as it was Founded. I see no difference in wishing ill of my enemy be it a Evil Progressive or a man in the battlefield, make’s me think many will not have the courage to pull the trigger when SHTF.
  
  Report this comment
Rock_Moninoff
Posted on December 31, 2012 at 3:05am
Wow! The Chavez supporters look very much like Obama supporters. Wonder if they’ll get treatment in
Cuba if they require medical atención?

Report this comment
Log in to ReplyReply
- YAHSHUARULES
  Posted on December 31, 2012 at 4:03am
  Lord God, I thought the very same thing. It is frightening what has happened to the people here and they don’t even know they have been duped into being useful idiots…
  
  Do you know who the Fabians (with logo of wolf in sheep’s clothing), SDS, Frankfurt School and Willi Munzenberg, John Dewey , Antonio Gramsci, Mattechine Society, Alinksi (who dedicated his book “Rules for Radicals to Lucifer), which Obama taught in Chicago for years, Committees of Correspondence are? Connect all the dots that allowed Obama to waltz into the White House…
  
  All part of the Agenda to create an America so corrupt it stinks; use public policy to subvert America from inside, infiltrate and influence our culture driving us in a direction designed to destroy us. . If you don’t know all this you need to find out! I have watched it 12X to absorb all that is in it!
  
  This is the most comprehensive, best movie I have seen pulling all this together. Watch it. Share it. Arrange a showing in church, groups, clubs, with friends or family. Everyone who loves America needs to see this movie,
  It is free on line for the moment
  
  https://vimeo.com/52009124
  If America goes down, the free world will go down with it and it will be finished for a very, very long time…
  
  Report this comment
- Gorp
  Posted on December 31, 2012 at 4:36am
  Those are just the women he’s been dating.
  
  Report this comment
- GhostOfJefferson
  Posted on December 31, 2012 at 5:47am
  I wonder if he developed a “clot” too?
  
  Too soon?
  
  Report this comment
sndrman
Posted on December 31, 2012 at 1:31am
wow the picture shows what about 15 women……………same tactic used by the dems/socialists

Report this comment
Log in to ReplyReply
- YAHSHUARULES
  Posted on December 31, 2012 at 4:06am
  I love your avatar:
  How did we go from a large landslide of Pres. Reagan in the 80′s to Obama being able to dupe for 2 terms?
  
  Ronald Reagan said that freedom was not transmitted in the blood stream from one generation to the next that it needed to be fought for.
  If America goes down, the free world will go down with it and it will be finished for a very, very long time.
  Free on line: Agenda: Grinding America Down
  https://vimeo.com/52009124
  This is the most comprehensive, best movie I have seen pulling all this
  together. Watch it. Share it. Arrange a showing in church, groups, clubs, with friends or family. Everyone who loves America needs to see this movie,
  
  Report this comment
MDDAWG
Posted on December 31, 2012 at 1:24am
In the Cuba health care system, he will be soon if not already dead.

Report this comment
Log in to ReplyReply
- GhostOfJefferson
  Posted on December 31, 2012 at 5:59am
  And the beauty of it all is, who cares?
  
  I mean seriously, he’s a dictator, running to another dictatorship because he’s set in a system even more incompetent than Cuba, to save his own corpulent, soggy, oily, overweight hide. His final hours are really not something I ponder or care about at all, and the news of his passing will mean nothing to me when it happens.
  
  Report this comment
barber2
Posted on December 31, 2012 at 12:42am
Think Hugo’s got some ‘splaining to do.

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
mlip
Posted on December 31, 2012 at 12:40am
I hope you do not RIP you POS! Adios!

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
Salamander
Posted on December 31, 2012 at 12:34am
Time is the great equalizer!

Report this comment
Log in to ReplyReply
- Diane TX
  Posted on December 31, 2012 at 12:50am
  Yep. It’s hilarious how some of the younger posters complain that some of the older posters are “out of date” in their views. They don’t seem to realize that they too, will be old sooner that they think.
  
  Report this comment
Beachmastermax
Posted on December 31, 2012 at 12:20am
When Castro needs medical attention he goes to Spain. When Chavez needs medical attention he goes to Cuba. Venezuela must have some pretty crappy Hugocare.

Report this comment
Log in to ReplyReply
- sndrman
  Posted on December 31, 2012 at 1:28am
  hugocare/obamacare LOL
  
  Report this comment
RaydocX
Posted on December 30, 2012 at 11:50pm
so much for Cuba’s better medicine… Maybe Michael Moore should head over to see if he can help… he could take Piers Morgan with him.

i thought they were saying it was his thyroid a year or two ago.
his condition is almost as transparent as Hillary’s and the whole Obama administration.

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
IndyGuy
Posted on December 30, 2012 at 11:48pm
Buhbye Hugo…Good luck trying to get along in hell…

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
SmellyDog
Posted on December 30, 2012 at 11:42pm
I bet Sean Penn is at his bedside.

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
ak47po
Posted on December 30, 2012 at 11:38pm
I bet he can smell the sulfur already.

Report this comment
Log in to ReplyReply
- Lee_in_PA
  Posted on December 31, 2012 at 7:12am
  Took me a minute to make the connection. GOOD one.
  
  Report this comment
dosdelgados
Posted on December 30, 2012 at 11:35pm
Methinks Chavez and Hillary are holed up in a Ritz-Carlton somewhere together playing Battleship.

Report this comment
Log in to ReplyReply
- MisterSarcastic
  Posted on December 31, 2012 at 2:00am
  …or hide the wiener.
  
  Report this comment

It appears that you have Javascript Disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser preferences for a better user experience on TheBlaze. You can not comment without Javascript enabled.