Sick Chinese dissident can be moved safely for overseas treatment, foreign doctors say
Medical evacuation needs to happen soon, US and German specialists say after meeting Nobel laureate
Chinese Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo can be moved abroad safely for cancer treatment but quick action is needed, German and US specialists who examined Liu said on Sunday, countering assessments by their Chinese counterparts.
The foreign doctors, who saw Liu in Shenyang, Liaoning province, on Saturday, said their own medical institutions had agreed to admit Liu.
“While a degree of risk always exists in the movement of any patient, both physicians believe Mr Liu can be safely transported with appropriate medical ... care and support. However, the medical evacuation would have to take place as quickly as possible,” the two doctors said in a statement released by the University of Texas’ MD Anderson Cancer Centre.
The two doctors – Joseph Herman, clinical research director of the cancer centre’s department of radiation oncology, and Markus Büchler, chairman of Heidelberg University’s department of surgery – said Liu and his family had “requested that the remainder of his care be provided in Germany or the United States”.
Liu was granted medical parole last month after he was diagnosed with late-stage liver cancer in May. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010, a year after he was sentenced to 11 years’ jail for “inciting subversion of state power”.
