in a "critical condition" as doctors began weaning him off sedatives and a coma, nearly a week after he suffered a massive stroke and cerebral hemorrhage.
"The first was a spontaneous breathing of the prime minister, even though he is still connected to a ventilator," said Dr. Shlomo Mor-Yosef, the director of Jerusalem’s Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital. He added there were also signs of brain activity.
"During the day until now, his response to pain that we evoked showed that he started to move minimally. His right hand and right leg moved. These signs, together with slight elevation of his blood pressure as a reaction to pain, are signs of some brain activity," Mor-Yosef said.
However Sharon’s neurosurgeon, Dr. Felix Umansky, cautioned that recovery process for Sharon would be long and difficult.
"LONG WAY"
"We are just at the beginning of a long way he needs to undergo. We need to be very cautious when talking about the prognosis, but we are going to do everything we can to help him to pull through this situation," he said. Umansky told reporters that his breathing improved as the day progressed, but that it was still unclear if Sharon was conscious.
Aids have already suggested it is unlikely that the 77-year-old Sharon will ever return to power. Sharon’s deputy, Ehud Olmert, has been declared acting prime minister for 100 days, so no quick decision is expected from the attorney general about a declaration regarding Sharon’s state.
If Israel’s attorney general declares Ariel Sharon permanently incapacitated, then Israel’s Cabinet would have to elect a new prime minister from among the five Cabinet members who belong to the Kadima Party, which Ariel Sharon founded last November to contest elections due at the end of March, the Voice Of America (VOA) reported.
CONTINUE WORK
Olmert stressed however he was convinced that Sharon wanted his cabinet to go to work. "If I could speak with him this morning and ask, ‘Arik, what would you tell us? What would you want us to do?’, he would say: ‘I appreciate the fact that you are all concerned about my health. Thank you, but get to work," he said according to a transcript seen by BosNewsLife.
Olmert stressed Sharon wanted them to "continue running affairs of state and doing everything to take care of security and socio-economic issues."
He said "this is what we will continue to do. We will pay attention, we will pray and we will believe that we will hear good news from Hadassah-Ein Kerem Hospital. In the meantime, we will continue to do what Arik would want – running affairs as they should be." (With reports from Israel).
