Fidel is a vegetable after a stroke, per Miami Herald

[JY0]

http://www.miamiherald.com/201...ffered-a-stroke.html

Fidel Castro suffered a stroke, Venezuelan doctor says

A Naples doctor said former Cuban leader Fidel Castro is near ‘a neurovegetative state’ after suffering a stroke.

Fidel Castro rumor mill continues to churn

When it comes to Hugo Chávez’s health, a Naples doctor ‘knows’

Venezuelan president lack of visibility fuels health speculation

Social media sites abuzz with rumors of Castro’s death

BY JUAN CARLOS CHAVEZ

[email protected]

Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and his state of health is so precarious that he has trouble feeding, speaking and recognizing people, said a Venezuelan physician who assured El Nuevo Herald that he has access to firsthand sources and information.

“He suffered an embolic stroke and recognizes absolutely no one,” said José Marquina, a respected doctor who in the past has claimed to have direct information about the illness affecting President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela.

“The people with a condition of this nature have difficulty eating and, of course, they end up with total deficit in their neurologic capacities.”

Rumors about Castro’s health have circulated consistently in social networks and the media. But the speculations intensified recently, to the point that word spread that he had died and that the Cuban government would make an official announcement to that effect.

Castro was last seen in public in March, during the visit to Cuba of Pope Benedict XVI. Since June, he has not written his opinion columns, called “Reflections.” He did not send any message or congratulation to Chávez for his recent election victory.

Castro is in his home in El Laguito, Havana, receiving constant and specialized medical care, Marquina said. The idea of the Cuban authorities and Castro’s family is to maintain him alive and far from public view, the doctor said.

“He could last weeks like that, but what I can say is that we’ll never again see him in public,” said Marquina in a telephone interview from Naples.

Castro receives no therapy to improve his condition because his neurological state does not allow it, Marquina added. Marquina described Castro’s condition as “very close to a neurovegetative state.”

“He is not receiving artificial respiration and is not connected to tubes, as some have said. What’s probably true is that Castro is being fed through nasogastric tubes,” Marquina said.

He said that the death of patients with this type of clinical picture is generally caused by respiratory complications and irreversible infections.

According to Marquina, the decline in Castro’s health compelled Chávez to fly to Havana on Tuesday, to inquire about his ally’s health.

[rckymtn22]

Already covered....... http://www.friendsofhabanos.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=112445&hl=

[Nino]

Guess there is no need to panic .... we might have him join us for a cigar at the Nacional terrace :-)) !!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/21/fidel-castro-alive-dead_n_1997570.html

[Nino]

And a final story on all the recurrent hype on the guy from well a informed source which exposes the circus behind the latest rumours - Castro denies his own death :

http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=80691

Interesting part :

The house in Laguito

Shortly before Jose Marquina, a Venezuelan doctor who also lives in Florida, said he knew firsthand from a good source that the Comandante had suffered “a cerebral embolism and now he doesn’t know anybody.”

The information he was spreading lacked such seriousness that it placed this dying Fidel Castro in his “house in El Laguito,” when he actually resides in another part of town.

Fidel has never lived in El Laguito, since the houses there are normally used as protocol residences.

To top it all off, a supposed Italian journalist, Tommaso Debenedetti, set himself the task of spreading the news of Fidel’s death on social networks, sparking off a craze that even the professional media found difficult to avoid.

From a fake Twitter account, Debenedetti made it appear that the Cuban foreign minister issued a message about a special public appearance by Raul Castro to announce that “Fidel Castro died today,” while adding that “an official communiqué from the Central Committee will be released in the coming hours.”