Doctors plan to rouse Sharon today
JERUSALEM – The hospital caring for Ariel Sharon said doctors hoped to bring him out of a medically induced coma today, an important step in determining how much damage the Israeli leader suffered from a stroke.
One of Sharon’s doctors said if the prime minister survives, he would not be able to return to office. Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the Cabinet he would work to carry on Sharon’s political legacy.
Sharon, Israel’s most popular politician, was seen by many here as the best hope for resolving the Israel-Palestinian conflict. His stroke Wednesday, just three months before elections, has stunned Israelis and left Middle East politics in limbo.
Sharon, 77, remained in critical condition this morning at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Hospital after undergoing two lengthy surgeries to stop bleeding in his brain. Sharon had experienced a mild stroke Dec. 18.
“There is no change in the prime minister’s condition,” the hospital said in a statement early today. “This morning there will be consultation among the doctors treating him, … and in the event there is no change in the situation, the process of reducing his sedation will begin.”
Experts said the process could take six to eight hours, and doctors should have a good idea of the extent of the damage by the end of the day.
Doctors have kept Sharon in a medically induced coma and on a respirator since Thursday to give him time to heal.
Hospital spokeswoman Yael Bossem-Levy would not disclose the timetable for the consultations or procedures set for today.
Doctors had planned to start pulling Sharon from the coma Sunday, but decided to hold off until today, providing there was no change in his condition.
A brain scan on Sunday showed Sharon’s vital signs, including the pressure inside his skull, were normal, said Dr. Shlomo Mor-Yosef, the hospital director.
Doctors will pass their assessment of brain damage to Attorney General Meni Mazuz.
“They will inform us the moment they wake him up from the sedation, and they will know what systems were damaged and what his situation is,” Justice Ministry spokesman Jacob Galanti said.
If doctors determine that Sharon is permanently incapacitated, the Cabinet would meet immediately to choose a new prime minister from the five sitting Cabinet ministers from Sharon’s Kadima Party who also are lawmakers. Olmert is seen as Sharon’s potential heir.
One of Sharon’s surgeons, Dr. Jose Cohen, said that while the premier’s chances of survival were high, his ability to think and reason would be impaired.
“He will not continue to be prime minister, but maybe he will be able to understand and to speak,” the Argentina-born Cohen said in comments published Sunday by the Jerusalem Post.
Outside experts were even less optimistic.
“There is zero expectation on my part that he will have the capacity to perform in any kind of formal way,” said Dr. Keith Siller, Medical Director at the NYU Comprehensive Stroke Care Center.
Israel’s Cabinet met for its weekly gathering Sunday for the first time since Sharon’s stroke.
Olmert sat next to Sharon’s empty chair; the prime minister’s untouched gavel rested in the middle of the table.
Olmert told the ministers that Sharon would want everyone to get back to work on the country’s pressing security, social and economic issues.
“This we will continue to do,” he said. “We will continue also to carry out the wishes of Sharon, to manage affairs as necessary.”
The Cabinet meeting was Olmert’s first formal opportunity to persuade Israelis and the world that the nation’s affairs were in good hands and that he would pursue Sharon’s political program.
Shimon Peres, the Labor Party elder statesman and Nobel Peace Prize laureate who abandoned his party to join Sharon in Kadima, dispelled rumors that he might return to his former party or challenge Olmert.