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Doctors check Sharon for more bleeding
(AP)
Updated: 2006-01-07 20:16
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon underwent a brain scan Saturday to check for more bleeding and pressure in his skull as doctors prepared to assess how much damage the Israeli leader has suffered from his severe stroke.
The scan came a day after doctors performed a five-hour emergency brain operation on Sharon that they said successfully stopped a hemorrhage and relieved swelling on his brain. Although doctors reported "significant improvement" following the surgery, Sharon remained in serious condition.
Results from the brain scan were not expected until later Saturday unless there is a change in Sharon's condition, Hadassah Hospital spokeswoman Yael Bossem-Levy said.
Outside experts have said the prognosis looks grim, given the severity of the prime minister's stroke.
An official determination on Sharon's condition won't take place before Sunday, after doctors wean him off drugs meant to keep him in a medically induced coma and give him time to heal, said hospital spokesman Ron Krumer. They have given no specific information on his brain function.
The General Director of the Hadassah Hospital Dr. Shlomo Mor-Yosef pauses as he gives a statement to the press about the health condition of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon outside the emergency room of the hospital in Jerusalem, Israel, Friday, Jan. 6, 2006.[AP] |
"There is always some damage when you have cerebral hemorrhage," Dr. Felix Umansky, the chief neurosurgeon operating on Sharon, told The Associated Press. "We cannot assess the damage because he is under anesthesia all the time. We need to wait and see what will happen once we reduce the medication which keeps him under sedation."
Worshippers at Hadassah Hospital said a prayer for the ailing prime minister during services on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath. Other synagogues were expected to mention Sharon by name in the special prayer for the ill recited on Sabbath.
Sharon's stroke late Wednesday — his second in less than three weeks — threw the country into turmoil less than three months before national elections. His deputy, Ehud Olmert, was quickly named the acting prime minister.
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