Doctor hopeful about Sharon’s survival

JERUSALEM – Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s chances of surviving his severe stroke are very high, but his ability to think and reason have been damaged, one of his surgeons said.

The 77-year-old Israeli leader remained in critical condition today, according to a statement from Jerusalem’s Hadassah hospital.

“There was no change in the prime minister’s condition overnight,” the statement said. “His condition is stable but continues to be critical.”

Hospital spokesman Ron Krumer said doctors treating Sharon would meet this morning to “determine the continuation of the prime minister’s treatment.”

Doctors were to decide when to begin lifting Sharon’s medically induced coma to examine the severity of the brain damage. His vital signs were stable and a brain scan Saturday showed a slight reduction in swelling.

“Tomorrow is the day of truth,” Dr. Jose Cohen, one of Sharon’s surgeons, told Channel 2 TV on Saturday. “Tomorrow we will all know if what we did for him helped him or not.”

Cohen said he was “quite optimistic” about Sharon’s prospects for survival, which he said were “very high now.”

But when asked about possible cognitive impairment, Cohen replied, “To say after such a severe trauma as this that there will be no cognitive problems is simply not to recognize the reality.”

Dr. Gali Sargan, a neurologist at Israel’s Soroka Hospital who is not treating Sharon, said doctors today would look at such factors as the size of the brain, the results of a CT scan performed Saturday and general body functions like blood pressure and body temperature.

Cohen’s comments appeared on Channel 2 as a transcript broadcast on the screen. He did not appear himself. It was not immediately possible to contact Cohen by phone, and Sharon’s other surgeon, Dr. Felix Umansky, declined to speak with the Associated Press.

However, Umansky talked to an Argentine radio station, and Israel Radio reported that he said he would be pleased if Sharon can recover enough to be with his family, despite inevitable brain damage from the stroke.

The comments reinforced a widespread assumption that Sharon will never return to power. Israelis from all walks of life have lamented Sharon’s likely departure from the political scene. With his larger-than-life persona and warrior credentials, he was seen as the man most capable of disentangling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

When waking Sharon out of his coma, doctors will be “looking for some sort of response,” the Hadassah Hospital director, Dr. Shlomo Mor-Yosef, told journalists outside. “If there is no response, that would be bad news.”

Asked whether Sharon’s life could be saved, Mor-Yosef replied, “We believe it’s possible.”

Sharon, who experienced a mild stroke on Dec. 18, felt weak Wednesday and was being rushed by ambulance to Hadassah from his ranch in southern Israel when a blood vessel on the right side of his brain burst, causing massive cerebral hemorrhaging.

He has undergone surgery twice to stop bleeding in the brain and to relieve pressure inside his skull. Although doctors treating him have not offered a prognosis, outside experts have said the outlook is grim. Aides said they do not expect Sharon to return to the prime minister’s office.

Before his collapse, Sharon appeared headed to win a third term in office at the head of Kadima, a new, centrist party he formed to build on the momentum created by his seminal summer withdrawal of soldiers and settlers from the Gaza Strip.

Although Israel and the Palestinians have not managed to use the withdrawal as a springboard for the immediate revival of stalled peace talks, there had been hope that the process would resume after Palestinian elections in January and Israeli balloting in March.

At synagogues throughout Israel, worshippers set aside political differences and recited a “mi sheberach” for Sharon – a prayer of well wishes.

David Zvuluni, huddled with three other worshippers outside his Jerusalem synagogue, said he opposed Sharon’s Gaza withdrawal, but at this moment wished him only well. “I don’t believe there’s a synagogue in the country that’s not praying for Sharon,” he said. “There are just a few lunatics, but the rest of the people of Israel are all praying for him, even those, like us, who opposed him.”