Former US Vice President, Mr Dick Cheney, announced that he has undergone surgery to install a small pump to help his heart work, as the 69-year-old enters a new phase of what he called "increasing congestive heart failure."
"The operation went very well, and I am now recuperating," Mr Cheney said in a statement released by his office on Wednesday. The surgery took place last week at Inova Fairfax Heart and Vascular Institute in northern Virginia, wherMr Cheney is currently receiving care.
A longtime face of the Republican Party, Cheney has dealt with heart problems much of his adult life, suffering five heart attacks since age 37. He said the latest step, the implanting of a pump called a left ventricular assist device, will allow him to resume an active life.
The kind of heart pump that Cheney received can be implanted next to the heart to help its main pumping chamber, the left ventricle, pump blood through the body. Such devices are used mainly for short periods, to buy potential transplant candidates time as they await a donor organ.