Sharon 'critical', in ICU

2006-01-05 11:01

Jerusalem - Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon was transferred from the operating theatre into intensive care on Thursday, after more than seven hours of surgery overnight and in the morning succeeded in stemming massive haemorrhaging in his brain, his doctors said.

The 77-year-old premier's vitals were "stable", but his condition continued to be "serious", they said.

Medical experts, who were not part of the team treating him, said the chances that Sharon would recover without severe, irreversible damage to his brain, were extremely slim.

Acting Premier Ehud Olmert, meanwhile, headed a brief cabinet meeting after having taking over Sharon's full powers and duties on Wednesday as per Israeli law.

Sharon had returned to the operating theatre in the early morning for what was described by doctors as a difficult procedure to repair ruptured blood vessels, after a CT scan discovered further bleeding despite an hours-long initial operation during the night.

Massive brain haemorrhage

Haddassah Ein Kerem Hospital Director Mor Ben-Yoseph told reporters Thursday morning that Sharon had suffered a "significant cerebral event", involving "massive, extensive bleeding" in the brain.

Sharon reached the hospital "dazed" and with high blood pressure, he said.

Sharon had been taken by ambulance to hospital in Jerusalem from his home in southern Israel after complaining that he was feeling unwell. He was wheeled into the hospital on a stretcher around 23:00 local time.

The massive brain haemorrhage came less than three weeks after he suffered a minor stroke, which doctors said caused no lasting damage.

It also came a day before he was scheduled to undergo a 30- to 45-minute routine heart catheterisation to close a small, congenital hole in his heart, believed to have caused the initial stroke by allowing a blood clot to travel through it from the heart to the brain.

For more than two weeks, Sharon had received blood-thinning injections twice daily in anticipation of the catheterization scheduled for Thursday.

The event is likely to have a massive political impact, as Sharon's new Kadima party had been leading in the opinion polls, which have been predicting he could count on as much as a third of the Knesset (parliament) seats in the upcoming March 28 elections.

- SAPA