Brazil Medical Saga

WE ARE 134 MILLION PRAYING FOR YOU, TANCREDO, read a banner outside Sao Paulo's Heart Institute. Television broadcasts mixed Easter week religious messages with prayers for President-elect Tancredo Neves, 75. In Neves' home state of Minas Gerais, an archbishop led special prayers at a Mass attended by 10,000 people. Outside the institute, hundreds of Brazilians, some weeping, waited for the latest medical bulletin.

For more than three weeks, Brazil has been in a state of suspended animation, while the life of its President-elect has hung in the balance. Only hours before Neves was to be sworn in on March 15 as Brazil's first civilian President after 21 years of military rule, he had to undergo emergency surgery for diverticulitis, an inflammation of the intestinal tract. The operation appeared to be successful, but Neves soon had to go under the knife again, this time to remove a blockage caused by the first procedure. He seemed on his way to recovery once more, when another problem arose: internal hemorrhaging. He was rushed from the capital, Brasilia, for a third operation, at the Heart Institute of Sao Paulo's Hospital das Clinicas, one of the largest and best-equipped such centers in South America.

Last week the sad cycle of recovery and relapse grew worse. On Tuesday, physicians discovered that Neves was suffering a strangulated hernia, which made him susceptible to a breakdown of tissue. Once again he was operated on. Two days later the physicians discovered that their patient had a new infection in his lungs, which could be fatal. More surgery was performed, this time to drain two abscesses. It was Neves' fifth operation in 21 days. As relatives and friends prepared themselves for the worst, Neves began to show signs of growing stronger, and was said by a spokesman to be in stable condition. Said Dr. Henrique Walter Pinotti, chief surgeon: "Tancredo Neves is still alive because of his sheer determination to live."

With the nation's attention centered on the presidential sickbed, Sao Paulo became, in effect, Brazil's second capital. Cabinet ministers and state Governors converged on the hospital to lend support to Neves' family. At the same time, senior government officials reportedly met to decide what to do in the event of the President-elect's death. Vice President Jose Sarney, 54, concluded that he could no longer keep official matters on hold. "I'm going to start wielding my pen," he said after the fourth operation. "Regardless of the respect I have for President Tancredo Neves, the interests of the country are at stake." At week's end the country focused on the question repeatedly asked by Neves at the time of his third operation: "How much longer? How soon is this going to be over?"