KIEV, May 27 (RIA Novosti) - The famous American science fiction writer Robert Sheckley, who has spent a month in a private hospital in Kiev, will fly home today.
His doctors in Kiev said he had a serious respiratory disease and his current state was not satisfactory, but he can take the flight back home to the US.
Sheckley was to fly on Thursday but the departure was delayed by problems with the plane.
It has transpired that Ukrainian businessman Viktor Pinchuk, the son-in-law of the former Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma, paid for the hospital treatment and flight of the SF writer.
Robert Sheckley, aged 76, came to Kiev in mid-April for a forum of science fiction writers. Three days later he was rushed to a private hospital with "progressing respiratory failure."
When it turned out that the writer had lost his medical insurance card and could not pay for his stay in hospital, the publishing house My Computer pledged to act as the guarantor and the writer's relatives appealed to his fans around the world for help via the Internet.
The insurance company whose policy Sheckley lost did not react to the news about his illness and the loss of insurance policy.
