Navarrete’s Statements on Chavez’s Health “Scientific Negligence”, Say Venezuelan Physicians

Caracas, 22 Oct. AVN.- This week, a group of doctors headed by Fidel Ramirez, a physician at the Military Hospital Dr. Carlos Arvelo in Caracas, dismissed the statements recently made by Dr. Salvador Navarrete concerning the health of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

In a joint press conference, general practitioner and gastroenterologist Fidel Ramirez, ophthalmologist Earle Siso Garcia, and trauma surgeon Rafael Vargas Medina, stated that Navarrete was guilty of “scientific negligence, daring to make diagnoses and prognoses without the necessary medical information, which we reiterate is completely unknown to him.”

Despite the positive diagnosis recently given to Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, who revealed that medical tests in Cuba had shown that there was no presence of malignant cells in his body; Navarrete stated in a  Mexican magazine last October 16 that the president had a “very aggressive” tumour in the pelvic area. Navarete did not supply any medical evidence in support of his claims.

“Dr. Navarrete does not have, nor has he had any scientific information in order to be able to talk about the health of president Chavez, not even about the type of cancer he endured,” Ramirez said.

The physician also stated that Dr. Navarrete may have had some informal contact with the president, but that “it was never a physician-patient relationship.”

“There is no truth to Dr. Navarrete’s comments” stated Dr. Ramirez.

The statement read by the physicians on live television also highlights that Navarrete “has not been president Chavez’s physician, nor the family doctor of any of the president’s relatives.”

Ramirez labelled the comments as “inexplicable scientific negligence” and stated that they were a violation of the code of ethics established within the medical profession.

“The statements lack any scientific grounding. We reject this kind of behaviour, which represents a violation of the medical code of ethics, since it is based on an alleged medical examination in which Navarrete never took part.”

Dr. Ramirez also added that as president Chavez had been diagnosed and treated in time, his progress had been satisfactory.

For his part, Dr. Earle Siso García explained that the Venezuelan president was not receiving dialysis treatment, as he has not presented kidney problems.