Former Czech president Vaclav Havel is in a serious but stable condition in a Prague hospital with respiratory problems, doctors said today.
They said Mr Havel had undergone throat surgery on Monday and doctors were battling to halt the spread of an inflammation in his chronically ill lungs. "At this moment his condition has stabilised, his life is not in a direct danger," said Martina Pelichovska, a senior physician at an intensive care unit of the Prague Motol Hospital. The former chain smoker is lacking half a lung and has chronic bronchitis. Doctors said Mr Havel was conscious and was breathing through an oxygen mask.
The 72-year-old playwright and former dissident, jailed in the country's communist era, has come close to death several times since the 1990s, when he overcame lung cancer and a ruptured intestine.
Mr Havel was elected Czechoslovak president in the bloodless 1989 Velvet Revolution, which ended four decades of communist rule.
After Czechoslovakia split into two countries in 1993 he became president of the Czech Republic and led the central European country for another decade.
Since stepping down, Havel has devoted time to supporting human rights activists around the world. He has also returned to writing. A new play,
Leaving, was staged last year.
Reuters