A top doctor is sounding the alarms after it was revealed Mitch McConnell had not been cleared to return to the Senate, but his team claims he’s working hard to return “soon.”
Dr. Anahita Dua, a vascular surgeon, warned it could be a much longer haul for the 84-year-old than they’re letting on, and his staff could be doing the aging senator a harmful disservice.
McConnell claimed to be working hard to return to the Senate and Kentucky “soon” in a statement released by his office on Monday.
His team also enlisted the office of the attending physician to put out a statement for the first time, but it said he was undergoing a “strenuous course of physical therapy and rehabilitation” and ”not yet medically cleared to leave the rehab facility."
According to Dua, the message that he’s pushing to get back is not what McConnell needs, and based on what is known, it could still be months before he emerges.
“Rehab for frailty, where you need to learn to walk and stuff again, it takes time to build up strength, is in months. That’s how long it takes,” Dua said. “Months of exercises and constant rehab, sometimes up to three hours, four hours of rehab a day.”
She warned that the effort to show his eager return is not in McConnell’s best health interests.
“Why are we having this ridiculous expectation of him, and why is he portraying this ridiculous expectation that he’s gonna get back to it?” Dua questioned.
Despite not being medically cleared to leave rehab, McConnell’s team has claimed that he is working with his staff.
His longtime aide David Popp said in a statement over the weekend that he is meeting with staff to discuss “defense appropriations, foreign policy, the farm bill, constituent services and constituent federal grant requests.”
Top Senate Republicans like Senate Majority Leader John Thune, Whip John Barrasso and political contributor Scott Jennings have also said they’ve spoken to McConnell and touched on policy.
“If what they’re saying is true, that they’re working on Senate-related issues with this patient that is working on his rehab, that is atrocious,” Dua said. “If I was his doctor, I would put the kibosh on that right away.”
Dua raised concern that the effort to show McConnell was working on Senate matters while undergoing inpatient rehab was abuse.
“Are his staffers potentially pushing silly things like this, and putting him in a situation where he really needs to just be left alone?” she questioned. “I think all he’s hearing is probably an echo chamber of you’ve got to get back, and they clearly don’t have a clue what’s going on. And this poor elderly man is being, as I’ve said before, abused.”
She questioned if he is doing what he should be with inpatient rehab, “How can you possibly also do what is expected of you as a senator?”
“I hope the staffers are lying, and actually he’s getting the opportunity as he deserves, as all patients do, to rest and recuperate without the added stress of running his state as a senator. It just sounds so ridiculous,” Dua said.
Dua noted that based on the limited information available on McConnell’s condition, he could be in rehab another month, or it could be months, depending on the type of rehab he is in.
Dua noted that he had a prolonged hospitalization, is elderly, and has had other medical issues and signs of frailty, so he would likely be in a Skilled Nursing Facility (SNF) rehab facility, where he could get medical care and physical therapy.
However, the attending physician’s office statement on Monday did not provide any further insight.
“They basically purposefully said nothing because a doctor’s office, unless you have explicit permission from a patient, is not going to write down where he is from a physical and mental standpoint and put it out to the press,” Dua said. “What that was is very generic: he is in rehab, and the reason he is in rehab is to do rehab.”
