Argentine leader to undergo surgery on head

BUENOS AIRES — Argentina's president will undergo surgery on yesterday to surgically remove blood between her brain and skull that has been causing new and worrying symptoms, her physicians said.

The president's doctors said they had ordered Cristina Fernandez on Saturday to rest for a month after discovering the subdural hematoma — a clot inside her skull that was pressuring her brain and causing headaches. In some patients, such blood clots reabsorb by themselves over time.

But the situation became more urgent after Fernandez felt a weakness and numbness in her upper left arm Sunday evening, according to doctors at the Fundacion Favaloro, one of Argentina's top cardiology hospitals.

"Facing these symptoms, the team decided on surgical intervention," the hospital's doctors said in a statement.

The surgery involves drilling small holes through the skull to remove old blood. In a three-paragraph statement Saturday night that raised more questions than answers, her doctors attributed the injury to a still unexplained blow to her head that she suffered on August 12. That would have been the day after a primary vote showed a significant drop in support for ruling party candidates, despite her intensive campaigning.

As the 60-year-old leader returned to the hospital for pre-surgical exams on Monday, Vice President Amado Boudou made no mention of the planned operation. He said in a speech that top officials would run the country as a team "while she gets the rest she deserves."

"What Cristina wants is for us to maintain the administration," Boudou said, "and to carry on this project that (her late president and husband) Nestor Kirchner began and that Cristina has continued."

What he didn't say — and no other official ventured to guess — was whether Fernandez will formally delegate her executive powers during the surgery, or while she recovers. Boudou is under investigation for alleged corruption and illegal enrichment and currently has one of the worst images among Argentine politicians.

Even Sen. Anibal Fernandez, who often acts as a government spokesman, told the Telefe channel earlier Monday that "We don't have clear idea what will happen."

The Saturday night statement, read by her spokesman Alfredo Scoccimarro after she had spent nine hours in the hospital, provided no more details about the accident or the injury it caused. Questions left with Scoccimarro by The Associated Press were not immediately answered.

It's not unusual for symptoms of a chronic subdural hematoma to take weeks to appear, and many patients don't even recall injuring their heads, according to the Mayo Clinic in the United States. According to the US National Institutes of Health, symptoms can include confusion, decreased memory, difficulty speaking and walking, drowsiness, headaches, and weakness or numbness in the arms, leg or face.

But the surgery is considered to be low-risk, and the symptoms can be effectively and safely treated by draining the blood mass through a catheter, according to guidance from the University of Los Angeles.

Argentina's constitution provides for, but does not require, a formal transfer of power in case of health problems, said Daniel Sabsay, a constitutional lawyer. A full medical leave would require congressional approval, but short of that, "she alone decides, according to the problem she faces and her doctors' advice, if she needs to delegate some powers to the vice president," he told Radio Continental.

The president's critics said, however, that the government should be more transparent about her health. The statement issued Saturday contradicted earlier claims about the nature of her hospital tests; During one visit in August that had been described as gynecological, a brain scan was performed that didn't find anything wrong, her doctors revealed Saturday.

"There needs to be more information to lower the people's anxiety," said Fabian Perechodnik, who directs the Poliarquia political consulting firm.

The president — who returned to the hospital Monday after spending the weekend with her children, Maximo and Florencia Kirchner — is such an outsized figure in Argentine politics that it's difficult to imagine the government without her at its center. Now she'll be off the campaign trail three weeks before elections that could loosen the ruling party's hold on Congress.

Before his speech, Boudou and top Cabinet members made a show of unity as they delivered some squad cars to the border police. They were joined by one of the president's would-be successors in the 2015 elections, Buenos Aires Gov. Daniel Scioli, and her hand-picked candidate leading the ruling party's congressional slate on Oct. 27, Martin Insaurraulde.

Kirchnerism "is more united than ever," Scioli said. "We want to reassure the people that this team is united and determined."