Health of Politicians

Tudjman's "Ulcer" and Pavletic's Heart

AIM Zagreb, 10 January, 1999

The desperate state of Croatian health service in which hospitals lack even the most fundamental drugs and urgent surgeries are postponed because of the shortage of material necessary for operations, reopened the question in public who and under what conditions is entitled to medical treatment abroad. The cue was the case of the chairman of Crotian State Assembly, member of Academy Vlatko Pavletic, who underwent a complicated heart surgery in one of the best Swiss clinics - at the expense of tax-payers. And yet, another question was raised in the shadow of this polemic. The public was very precisely informed down to the tiniest detail about Pavletic's health, about particularities of his heart operation, while Tudjman's diagnosis is still persistently passed over in silence.

Dr. Marko Turina, cardiac surgeon who had operated on Pavletic, declared to Vecernji list that "constrictions of coronary arteries" of the patient "in four spots exceeded 50 per cent" which demanded "four by-passes". And since the operation lasted four and a half hours, Dr. Turina assessed that it belonged "in the category of serious heart surgery". In describing Pavletic's state of health Turina went a step further: he said that the "veins in his legs are in a poor state", and described in detail the operation on the heart of Croatian chairman of the parliament. Had such information about the man who chairs the parliament of a democratic country appeared in the press, nobody would think it were unusual. The person in question is a public and political figure and the public is entitled to know about him even that which is considered to belong in the sphere of privacy when ordinary mortals are concerned. And when, like in the Croatian constitution, the chairman of the parliament is at the same time the person who replaces the head of the state if the latter dies or is not capable of performing his duty, publication of such information would seem even more appropriate. This would be all the more logical when one knows all the prerogatives of the Croatian president (and therefrom of the person who replaces him) and the quantity of power and authority concentrated in his hands.

When at one moment Croatian president Tudjman had as a matter of emergency secretly been transported to American Walter Reed Hospital, and when the secret, thanks to CNN, had been revealed, Croatian public was informed that the president had problems with "gastric ulcer". This ridiculous diagnosis seemed quite unconvincing, because it was hard to believe that ailing Tudjman because of an ordinary gastric ulcer would be secretly hurried to the supreme American hospital. Especially because CNN, in its report that Tudjman was on medical treatment in Washington, published his diagnosis - gastric cancer. The then head of of Tudjman's medical team and minister of health, Dr. Andrija Hebrang, has never confirmed this diagnosis, although on account of further Tudjman's medical treatment it was clear that Croatian president was fighting something much more serious than a "gastric ulcer". Tudjman was obviously for some time on chemotherapy because he appeared in public wearing a not very successful wig which was intended to conceal the unpleasant visual effects of chemotherapy.

When on several occasions, journalists asked the then minister of health and head of the team of physicians in charge of Tudjman's health whether it was true that the president had cancer, Hebrang evaded the answer, claiming that Tudjman, like every other citizen had a right to his privacy which included secrecy of his medical diagnosis. Hebrang remained consistent in this stand, and when he was leaving the post of the head of president Tudjman's medical team at the same time as the post of the minister of defence which he had been nominated to after the death of Gojko Susak, said that he would take the secret of Tudjman's diagnosis to his grave. For that, Hebrang was remembered as one of the strictest advocates of the "right to privacy" even when the state of health of such an important and significant figure such as the head of the state is concerned. The official diagnosis of Tudjman's sickness, despite obvious changes of his physical appearance at the time, has never been published. Some media, both domestic and foreign, speculated about the real state of health of Croatian president and some of them claimed that Tudjman's illness progressed, even that metastases extended to the brain. Speculations went even further - the question was raised whether the president, in such a state, was capable of performing the most responsible duty in the state.

But not even such newspaper articles were a good enough reason for the officials to come out in public with the truth about the state of Tudjman's health, because obviously it was estimated that the right to privacy had the advantage over the right of the public to know the president's diagnosis. There were even interpretations similar to those from the time of "real socialism" that state of health of the head of the state was top secret. How come this practice has been abandoned in the case of the chairman of Croatian parliament Pavletic? The explanation that concealing of the state of health of the highest state officials has been abandoned, does not hold because - had it been true - the first thing to do would have been to come out with the true diagnosis of the Croatian president. Possible explanation of the "new practice" could also be that Tudjman had personally been against publication of data on his health, while Pavletic, was not. Or - maybe Pavletic was not consulted on this issue at all.

But, rumours about conflicts at the top of the ruling party about elimination of the remaining HDZ liberals could perhaps offer the answer to this question. According to certain hyotheses, the leader of the "liberal" faction of the HDZ and a thorn in the side of the rightists, Croatian foreign minister Mate Granic is expected to be removed from the current significant political post and "promoted" to the post of the chairman of the Croatian state assembly. He would replace ailing Pavletic there, and his place would be taken by somebody from the rightist faction of HDZ which has been waging a vigorous anti-European and anti-American campaign in the past few weeks. Granic was pro-European oriented and his view of Croatia in Europe and the world was not shared by HDZ radicals.

When one knows that the leader of the right HDZ faction, Tudjman's powerful advisor for internal policy Ivic Pasalic fully controls Vecernji list, Croatian daily with the biggest circulation, publication of details on the state of health of the chairman of the assembly Pavletic can very easily be explained. It is necessary to create the impression in public that after such a serious surgery Pavletic is not capable of performing his duty. It is necessary to find him a replacement, and this can be elegantly done by moving Granic to Pavletic's place.

After departure of the former head of Tudjman's office Hrvoje Sarinic and resignation of the minister of defence Andrija Hebrang, the Croatian political scene has not at all become peaceful because the struggle of the rightist HDZ faction against the remaining "liberals" in the party is not over yet. Therefore, publication of data on health of the person formally ranking second in the state, could become an instrument in political struggle in which the main rule has always been that the end justifies the means. If this struggle flares up, one might even expect that Tudjman's diagnosis will soon come out in the open.

DRAGO HEDL