Chavez Finishes Radiotherapy Treatment

HAVANA TIMES — President Hugo Chavez returned to Venezuela on Friday night after concluding the last in a series of radiotherapy treatments in Cuba in his fight against cancer.

Chavez was met at the airport by his cabinet; he had traveled to Havana on April 30th.

Without any doctor’s reports available, the only information on Chavez, 57, comes from the president himself.

Upon arriving home he said he had satisfactorily completed the radiotherapy treatment and is ready to face the coming challenges that include his reelection campaign.

“I successfully completed the entire cycle of radiotherapy, as was planned by the medical team,” noted Chavez. “Other than some discomfort — normal during this treatment — nothing forced me to stop, suspend or alter the initial plan, as it is fully completed.”

He added that he must now strictly follow the doctor’s orders “so I can recover from the normal effects, the expected effects, from the radiotherapy treatment.”

The charismatic leader, often at loggerheads with the US, and with Fidel Castro and Cuba as his closest ally, said he was optimistic “that the treatment will have the desired effects” calling on “Christ Savior” and the advances of medicine, to allow him “to be in the front line in the battle to build the Socialist Homeland.”

In the last 11 months Chavez has had two tumors removed from “the pelvic area” and has undergone both chemotherapy, after the first operation, and radiotherapy, after the second, to try to stop any further cancer.

Chavez praised the work of his cabinet in his absence, in working for the social and economic development of the country. He noted that inflation continues to drop “and the economic growth figures for the first quarter (of 2012) look good,” reported TeleSur.

Venezuela is Cuba’s leading trade partner and Chavez the Cuban government’s chief political ally. An exchange of tens of thousands of medical personnel and other professionals from Cuba, for oil from Venezuela, plays an important role in both countries economic and social programs.