Arafat fighting for his life

2004-11-05 06:56

Clamart, France - Doctors fought to keep Yasser Arafat, unconscious and gravely ill, alive as anxious Palestinian officials held an emergency meeting on how to prevent unrest if their 75-year-old leader dies.

A swirl of reports saying Arafat had died on Thursday were quashed by doctors at a French military hospital where the Palestinian leader has been treated since being airlifted to France last week.

Arafat's aides, however, acknowledged that his condition was very serious.

Coma

A senior Palestinian official said Arafat was in a coma in the intensive care unit. Arafat's chief of staff, Ramzi Khoury, called a reporter and said: "I am standing next to the president's bed, he is in grave condition."

Outside the hospital, some 50 well-wishers held a vigil late into the night. Some held candles, others Arafat portraits; a large Palestinian flag hung from the hospital's outer wall.

"It tears your heart up," said Mahmod Nimr, 36, an unemployed Palestinian by the main gate of the hospital. "I can't see someone taking his place."

Persistent and contradictory reports

On a day of high drama, there were persistent and contradictory reports about Arafat's condition.

Luxembourg's prime minister announced at a summit of European leaders in Brussels on Thursday that Arafat had died, but his spokesman later said it had been a "misunderstanding."

The Israeli television network Channel Two reported that Arafat was brain dead but remained on life support.

But Arafat's personal physician, Dr. Ashraf Kurdi, said that a brain scan showed Arafat had not suffered a hemorrhage or stroke, and "has no type of brain death."

Brain death occurs when the brain stops working, making it impossible for the body to maintain its own vital functions, such as breathing.

It is irreversible. Patients can be kept alive by a machine, as long as the heart is still beating and nothing is seriously wrong with the rest of the body.

French television station LCI quoted an anonymous French medical official as saying Arafat was in an "irreversible coma" and "intubated" - a process that involves threading a tube down the windpipe to the lungs to connect it to a life-support machine to help the patient breathe.

To be on life-support, a patient must be unconscious, but not necessarily brain dead or even in a coma.

A Palestinian official in Gaza who is close to Arafat's wife, Suha, said she told him Arafat fell unconscious after receiving a strong anesthetic for a biopsy.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, quoted her as saying Arafat was recovering.

Palestinian leaders held an emergency meeting in the West Bank, and Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath said top officials were in touch with Arafat's hospital every 30 minutes to check on his condition.

- AP