Slovak Leader Flown to Austria Amid Criticism Over Care

Slovak President Rudolf Schuster was flown to Austria late Wednesday for treatment after two major surgeries left him near death, with Slovak and Czech media fiercely criticizing alleged bungling of his medical care.

“The president’s state is serious but stabilized, enabling the transport. The president is in a better state than he was in the morning,” presidential spokesman Jozef Leikert said late Wednesday, citing reports from Schuster’s medical team.

The 66-year-old president, who developed pneumonia after emergency bowel surgery, may have suffered brain damage from overnight failure of vital organs, anesthesiologist Milan Majek told a news conference earlier in the day in Bratislava, the Slovak capital.

Majek said the facility in Innsbruck, Austria, has special blood oxygenation equipment not available in Slovakia or in the Czech Republic, Reuters news service reported.

Schuster has been in a drug-induced sleep for several days, making it difficult to immediately assess the potential damage from the overnight crisis, doctors said.

Word that Schuster’s life was in danger followed reports that he had received far from the best possible medical care in Slovakia, which gained statehood in the 1993 breakup of Czechoslovakia.

Slovak media reported that the hospital where Schuster had his surgery lacked important diagnostic equipment, and that after a June 18 operation for a perforated intestine the president was kept--despite a fever--in a room without air-conditioning as temperatures hit 95 degrees. He underwent surgery again Friday to deal with inflammation that developed following the first operation.

Reporters also described a bungled transfer Sunday to another hospital, with the president taken first to a facility that was unable to accept him. The locked hospital was not expecting Schuster or anybody else.

“The president’s children, his bodyguards and medical personnel in a panic banged on the windows and swore coarse swearwords,” reported Lidove Noviny, a Prague-based Czech-language daily. “This scene continued a full two minutes.”

A top hospital official then emerged to say his institute could not provide immediate care, according to television reports. Meanwhile, journalists saw two men working to resuscitate Schuster, the newspaper said.

More than 30 minutes passed outside the hospital before Schuster’s ambulance raced to the Na Kramaroch clinic, reputed to be the city’s best hospital, where the president stayed early this week.

Public reaction has been extremely critical.

“Slovakia Is Scared by the Way Care Given to President,” declared a headline in Tuesday’s Lidove Noviny.

The presidency is a largely ceremonial position in Slovakia but has some important powers, such as signing laws.

Schuster’s victory over former Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar in last year’s election was important for Slovakia’s international relations because Meciar is widely viewed in Western Europe as an authoritarian figure.

Schuster has been regarded as a firm supporter of democracy even though he is a former Communist official. But polls now rank Meciar as the country’s most popular politician. If Schuster dies or becomes permanently incapacitated, that could pave the way for Meciar to make another presidential run.

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Special correspondent Iva Drapalova in Prague contributed to this report.