World

Czech President On Respirator

April 19, 1998 / 12:05 PM EDT / AP

Czech President Vaclav Havel was sedated and breathing with the help of an artificial respirator following emergency lung surgery, doctors said Sunday.

Doctors at Innsbruck's University Clinic had to suck phlegm from one of Havel's lungs on Saturday after it became blocked. Last week they removed part of his colon after it ruptured while he was on vacation in Austria.

"After phlegm was sucked off under brief anesthesia, he is now in a sleep induced by medication and on a respirator," said Dr. Werner Lingenau, a physician at the clinic.

Lingenau said a respirator was needed "so that those parts [of the lung] remain open, because there is a tendency that they may become blocked again."

Lingenau said he did not know how long Havel would have to remain on the respirator.

Havel, 61, had been reported in satisfactory condition after surgery Tuesday to remove part of his ruptured colon. But on Saturday he underwent a 35-minute operation known as a bronchoscopy to remove phlegm from his lung.

Doctors said Saturday that Havel's immune system was weakened by the surgery and he remains at risk for pneumonia or other infections.

"As a preventive measure, we consider it correct to treat the president in the intensive care unit," chief surgeon Ernest Bodner was quoted as saying Saturday.

Havel, who smoked heavily for years and spent a long time in communist jails, lost a third of his right lung to cancer in December 1996. He has often been sick since.

Austrian doctors said Tuesday the abdominal surgery was unrelated to his previous ailments and resulted from an inflammation that had punctured the intestine.

But Havel's personal doctor Ilja Kotik warned that Havel's lung capacity was limited after the 1996 surgery and that can cause complications.