Zimpapers Logo

Cristina Kirchner

BUENOS AIRES. – Argentina’s president Cristina Fernandez Kirchner has been told by doctors to take a month off because of a subdural haematoma on her brain, her spokesman said on Saturday, forcing her to abandon campaigning for congressional elections this month.
Fernandez (60) was admitted on Saturday to a Buenos Aires hospital. The president suffered trauma to the brain in August, her spokesman, Alfredo Scoccimarro, said.

He did not elaborate.
Vice-president Amado Boudou cut short a journey to France to return to Argentina and take over the president’s duties.
Fernandez is in an electoral campaign for elections at the end of this month that will determine control of Congress.

A subdural haematoma is an accumulation of blood under a membrane that covers the brain and usually occurs after a blow to the head.
The decision to discharge the president when the damage occurred suggests the haematoma is too small to be drained via surgery, said a doctor not involved in the treatment.

Fernandez, who has been president since 2007, had her thyroid glands removed last year after she was diagnosed with cancer, although later tests indicated no cancer was present. Her husband, former president Nestor Kirchner, died after a heart attack in 2010. The next presidential election is due in 2015. – The Guardian