Teresa Heinz Kerry, a leading philanthropist and wife of US Secretary of State John F. Kerry, was in critical but stable condition Sunday after being flown to Massachusetts General Hospital from Nantucket, where she had been rushed to the hospital for an undisclosed ailment, according to aides to the secretary.
Heinz Kerry, 74, was stricken while at the family’s vacation home, according to State Department spokesman Glen Johnson.
“Late Sunday afternoon, Mrs. Teresa Heinz Kerry was taken by ambulance to Nantucket Cottage Hospital, accompanied by her husband,” Johnson said in a prepared statement. “Once doctors had stabilized her condition, she was transferred to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, again accompanied by the Secretary.”
Johnson did not provide further details of her condition, saying “the family is grateful for the outpouring of support it has received and aware of the interest in her condition, but they ask for privacy at this time.”
Shortly after 5:30 p.m., Noah Brown, public information officer for Nantucket Cottage Hospital, confirmed in a brief phone interview that Heinz Kerry had arrived at the hospital that afternoon.
“She was brought in, in critical but stable condition, and that is currently how . . . . her condition still remains,” Brown said. “At this point, we are determining the next phase of her care, be that either in our facility on the island, or on the mainland.”
Heinz Kerry has overcome serious health problems in recent years. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in September 2009 and underwent surgery and radiation treatments. She has publicly encouraged other women to get regular mammograms to help enable early detection of the disease.
The Kerry family’s holiday weekend on Nantucket was designed as a much-needed respite for the nation’s top diplomat following a frenetic pace of foreign travel, but it garnered unwanted headlines before Heinz Kerry’s hospitalization. On Friday, a State Department spokeswoman was forced to retract an earlier denial that Kerry had been on his yacht, Isabel, during the military coup in Egypt Wednesday. – The Boston Globe