Ex-Dominican President Jorge Blanco in Serious Condition After Fall

Former Dominican Republic President Jorge Blanco is in grave condition at a capital clinic after falling and hitting his head, his son, the politician Orlando Jorge Mera, said Saturday.

The ex-president, 85, who governed the nation between 1982 and 1986, fell before dawn Saturday at his home and was taken in a state of coma to a clinic where he underwent surgery, his son told reporters.

“The situation is extremely grave,” Jorge Mera, secretary-general of the opposition Dominican Revolutionary Party, or PRD, to which Jorge Blanco belongs, said.

Jorge Mera said that his father “is fighting against death” at the intensive care unit of the Abel Gonzalez Clinic in the Dominican capital.

In 2007, Jorge Blanco was implanted with a valve to correct his walking difficulties caused by the hydrocephaly, or water on the brain, that he was suffering.

In addition, in 2005 the ex-Dominican president was admitted as an emergency patient due to heart problems.

Jorge Blanco was sentenced in Nov. 1987 to 20 years in prison and the payment of millions in fines for illicit enrichment while he was in office.

However, during the government of Hipolito Mejia (2000-2004), also of the PRD, Jorge Blanco was declared “not guilty” by the court, after the president in the name of the Dominican government dropped the accusations against the former head of state.

Source: Latin American Herald Tribune

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