Fidel Castro Dead? Cuban Leader's Health Under Scrutiny After Stroke
Fidel Castro's health is supposedly getting worse.
The aging Cuban leader suffered a massive stroke this week, according to Venezuelan physican Dr. José Marquina.
The doctor told El Nuevo Herald that the 86-year-old was in a "moribund" state at his Havana home.
"He suffered an embolic stroke and recognizes absolutely no one," said Dr. Marquina, who claims Castro suffered a severe cerebral hemorrhage. "The people with a condition of this nature have difficulty eating and, of course, they end up with total deficit in their neurologic capacities."
On the topic of how Castro's ailments are being treated, he stated: "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."
Dr. Marquina has also previously claimed that he had health information on Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, according to Fox News.
The Venezuelan doctor talked about Castro's supposed vegetative state saying, "He could last week's like that, but what I can say is that we'll never again see him in public [again]."
Castro has been out of the public eye since he was last seen in March greeting Pope Benedict XVI when he visited Cuba.
The former leader made headlines earlier in the week when he supposedly sent a congratulatory letter to the graduates of a Cuban medical school on the institution's 50th anniversary.
Castro's health has been an issue of national security in Cuba. The latest reports of his declining health have been denied by the state and his family who say Castro isn't on the edge of death.
Juanita Castro, sister of Fidel, told the Associated Press that the reports of the former leader's ailing condition are "pure rumors" and "absurd."
