Hughes for heart bypass surgery

AFC Chairman Nigel Hughes, 49, will require heart bypass surgery and arrangements are being made to fly him to a hospital in Trinidad.

Family sources say the decision was taken yesterday following angiography which showed severe blockage of an artery. Surgery has been scheduled for tomorrow.

Hughes arrived at the Caribbean Heart Institute at the GPHC yesterday morning at 7.15 after suffering a heart attack while in the Rupununi on Saturday.

He spent Saturday night at the Aishalton Hospital.

Sources say his condition was investigated at the CHI and blockage was detected in a key artery.

Nigel Hughes
Nigel Hughes

The plan had originally been to insert a stent into the artery to open it up but sources say that this was not possible as the blockage of that particular artery may be as much as 75%.

Hughes was up and about yesterday for a brief while at the hospital and greeted well-wishers.

The Ministry of Health yesterday morning medevaced Hughes, via Roraima Airways.

The Government Information Agency said that as  soon as  Minister of Health, Dr. Bheri Ramsaran heard of the incident on Saturday, he mobilised a regional health team from Region 9 to travel to the Marudi Mountains where Hughes was holding meetings.

Hughes was then taken to Aishalton, the nearest place from which he could have been airlifted to the city, GINA said.

Chairman of the Alliance For Change (AFC), Nigel Hughes being assisted out of a Roraima Airways aircraft with which he was airlifted from Aishalton, Region 9. (GINA photo)
Chairman of the Alliance For Change (AFC), Nigel Hughes being assisted out of a Roraima Airways aircraft with which he was airlifted from Aishalton, Region 9. (GINA photo)

A team from the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation travelled to Aishalton with the plane where they monitored him during the night and returned with him on the flight.

GINA said that the medevac is a Ministry of Health initiative in collaboration with Commodore Gary Best of the Guyana Defence Force and Roraima Airways.