Slovak prime minister undergoes another operation, remains in serious condition

Описание: (17 May 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Bratislava, Slovakia - 17 May 2024
1. Wide of Slovakia's Minister of Defense, Robert Kalinak ahead of news conference
2. SOUNDBITE (Slovak) Robert Kalinak, Slovakia's Minister of Defense:
"(Slovak Prime Minister) Robert Fico underwent a surgical procedure today, the details of which will be communicated to you by the (hospital) Director. After nearly two hours, we, (I mean) the medical team, did their best to be able to move the patient's condition closer to a positive prognosis. His condition continues to be very serious, but this surgery allowed for both follow-up and improvement of the individual gunshot wound healing to take place. I think it will be a few more days before we can definitively know this development's direction."
3. Journalists
4. SOUNDBITE (Slovak) Miriam Lapuníková, Hospital Director:
"Based on the result of the surgical procedure, the necrotic tissue that was left over from the gunshot wound was removed. The patient is conscious at this time and is stable, but continues to be placed in the ICU, and his condition is really serious. So everything, as it is developing, is standard for the serious condition that the Prime Minister really is in at this moment."
5. Wide shot of Kalinak speaking
6. SOUNDBITE (Slovak) Robert Kalinak, Slovakia's Minister of Defense:
"So once Robert Fico's health condition has been managed, we will not only be in a stable position, which we are in, but also in a state of health that will allow him to do something like this (transport), which doctors will assess. At that point, yes, we are just not there yet, to be able to talk about a possible transfer, because that requires that the patient is already in some quality of recovery, and we are definitely not there yet."
7. End of news conference, Kalinak leaving
STORYLINE:
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has undergone another operation after he was shot on Wednesday and remains in serious condition, the country's deputy prime minister and defense minister said Friday.

Fico, 59, was shot multiple times as he was greeting supporters after a government meeting in the former coal mining town of Handlova.

A suspected assailant has been arrested.

Miriam Lapunikova, director of the University F.D Roosevelt hospital in Banska Bystrica, where Fico was taken by helicopter after he was shot, said Fico underwent a CT scan and is currently awake and stable in an intensive care unit.

She described his condition as “very serious.”

She said the surgery removed dead tissues that had remained inside Fico's body.

“I think it will take several more days until we will definitely know the direction of the further development," Robert Kaliniak, the defense minister and deputy prime minister, told reporters at the hospital.

Fico has long been a divisive figure in Slovakia and beyond.

His return to power last year on a pro-Russian, anti-American platform led to worries among fellow European Union and NATO members that he would abandon his country’s pro-Western course, particularly on Ukraine.

Earlier Friday the man charged with attempting to assassinate Fico was escorted by police to his home.

Local media reported that it was part of a search for evidence.

AP video by Bela Szadelszky.

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