President Miloš Zeman said on CNN Prima News that you never investigated him and you knew nothing about his health. What do you think of his words?

The president is telling the truth. I didn’t really examine him clinically, I just spoke to him. Before the doctor approaches the patient’s bed, he studies all available documentation. And that’s what I do too. I studied all the documents collected by the colleagues from the Central Military Hospital. And based on that, I decided that there was no need for a surgical procedure, and therefore to examine the President. It’s not that I wasn’t informed about the president’s health.

However, some diagnoses can be established from the available information, and I fully trust them, also because the colleagues from the Central Military Hospital are very careful. No doctor wants to miss out on treating a president with ten million people watching, ready to name your first mistake. Therefore, the available information is sufficient for me, which I rely on in my reasoning. In one radio program, I unfortunately said that the president had cirrhosis of the liver.

Why do you regret your statement?

Because without asking the president what information we can release, we shouldn’t talk about his health.

But doesn’t the public have a right to information about the health of its president?

I do not think so. Some time ago in Brno, someone explained that the president had prostate cancer (former Brno-střed district council member, Svatopluk Bartík, who wrote on Facebook before the 2018 presidential election that President Zeman had cancer and would die within months, noted. ed.). And even then I thought it was inappropriate, that even if he had cancer, it shouldn’t be talked about if he didn’t want to.

In the end, it turned out that the president didn’t have cancer, and he sued the person who reported it (According to the court’s decision, Bartík must apologize to Zeman and pay him a compensation of 250,000 crowns, notes. ed.). I respect privacy. Imagine that you accidentally become pregnant and neighbors begin to interpret that you are going to have an abortion. The president is a human being like you or me, he has his own dignity, so why doesn’t he decide what information about his health is released and what not?

I understand that, on the other hand, he is a president who cannot fully devote himself to his current position. For example, he can’t travel overseas…

I don’t think so. He’s president, he doesn’t travel in third class and he doesn’t jostle with other passengers for hours on end on a packed train. Considering his state of health, of course I would not recommend him to travel all the way to Japan. I wouldn’t think that would make sense. But traveling through Europe is something else. After all, today you boarded a plane and in two hours you were in England.

So, do you think the president could arrange a shorter overseas trip to Europe?

I think it is. I saw him a few weeks ago when his condition had greatly improved. I don’t know how he is now, less than a month later, but above all, he’s an adult and know-it-all who can tell for himself if he feels like traveling abroad. Telling the president what to do and what not to do is wrong.

What did you and Mr President talk about the last time you met?

I heard from people who saw the footage on TV that when he was taken from Lán to the hospital in Prague, he was not fully conscious. But when I talk to him, his consciousness is fine.

We talked for about a quarter of an hour. We discussed the importance of personality in history. He said that historical figures were important, which I told him I had a different opinion. If one does not know what path the nation is taking, then there is no hope of becoming the nation’s leader.

The President argued with some British philosophers I didn’t know. It’s a matter of opinion. From the way I have had the opportunity to get to know President Zeman, he is a very well-read person who would put a lot of politicians in his pocket. He has the memory of a lion.

What else did you and the president say?

We don’t talk much about anything else. He felt good, lying on the bed. Many saw him as just president, and either supported him or hated him. And they thought of him that way even as he lay in the hospital bed. I don’t think that’s true.

During my 58 years of practice as a doctor, I have seen prominent figures of the communist regime, very smart and ignorant people, in hospital beds. But I always see mainly sick people there, regardless of position or money. A doctor should not talk about politics. He can comment on the state of health, and that’s what I expressed as a member of the president’s medical council.