As Head of the Presidential Secretariat (HPS) Dr. Roger Luncheon recuperates at home after brief hospitalization, sources say the decision to return to work solely lies with him.
“Only Dr. Luncheon can say when or if he will return to work but what I can tell you is that he loves working. So, don’t be surprised if you see him at work on Tuesday,” a source close to the HPS told this newspaper.
On Thursday, Luncheon was taken to the Caribbean Heart Institute, located at the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH) for a medical assessment, after he took ill at his Office of the President workplace.
After a few hours at CHI, he was discharged and told by medical personnel that he was exhausted and needs lots of rest.
A government official noted that Luncheon was a critical part of the People’s Progressive Party’s brain trust and to not have his input was not ideal for the party. However, the official said that Luncheon’s health was a personal matter and was not inclined to discuss it.
In April of this year, Luncheon announced that while he had been previously diagnosed with cancer of the gastrointestinal tract. He also said that he would not seek medical treatment and would leave his health to fate.
He told Stabroek News that he would not seek medical treatment as he did not wish to undergo rigorous cancer treatments at his age.
Luncheon said that this has been the second major health scare he has had. “This is my second chance with death. I am not a gambler but they say three times and you’re out,” he noted.
He said that he was assisting with plans for his replacement. When the time comes “the transition will be effective,” he explained, while adding that for now his workload has been scaled down to meet his limitations.
With the administration faced with a possible no-confidence vote against it in the coming weeks, he had stated that while he knows that his death was imminent it would be his wish to see the outcome of another general election. “I may or I may not live up, both literally and figuratively, to this outcome of the no-confidence motion, but if they have elections I would like to have the last opportunity to lay my wares out to the Guyanese public,” he had said.
