#1
Yeltsin well after heart check-up in Berlin clinic
December 17, 2001
BERLIN (Reuters) - Former Russian President Boris Yeltsin is in very good health, a German heart clinic said Monday after examining Yeltsin five years after bypass surgery.
Roland Hetzer, director of the German Heart Center in Berlin, said in a statement that the 70-year-old had come to seek a second opinion after an examination by doctors in Moscow.
Hetzer said it had been necessary to review Yeltsin's condition five years after his multiple bypass operation in Moscow. "The result of the operation can still be assessed as excellent and the health of the president as very good," he said.
Russia's Itar-Tass news agency quoted Yeltsin's aide, Vladimir Shevchenko, as saying that Yeltsin was feeling well and would return to Moscow Tuesday.
"The doctors in the clinic conducted important analyses, took all his vital signs and checked how the bypass valves were working," Tass quoted Shevchenko as saying.
Renat Akchurin, the surgeon who operated on Yeltsin's heart in 1996, told Russia's Interfax news agency that he had suggested Yeltsin go abroad for an examination by an expert in coronary angioplasty after he expressed concern about his own health.
It was not clear Akchurin thought Yeltsin might soon have to undergo angioplasty -- a technique which involves inserting and inflating a balloon inside obstructed coronary arteries to dilate them and can be an alternative to open-heart surgery.
Yeltsin, whose second term in office after re-election in 1996 was marked by serious health problems, appeared well when shown on Russian television Saturday voting in Moscow local elections.
Yeltsin was first elected in 1991. Soon after re-election for a second term in 1996, Yeltsin told the Russian public he was to have major heart surgery and the Kremlin admitted he had suffered several heart attacks during the election campaign.
Next Article