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Sharon to remain in coma until Monday
(AP)
Updated: 2006-01-08 19:32
Doctors will start bringing Prime Minister Ariel Sharon out of his medically
induced coma Monday, provided there are no changes in his condition, hospital
officials said Sunday.
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Jewish women pray
at the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest site, in Jerusalem's Old City
January 8, 2006. Doctors treating Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon were
due on Sunday to make a decision on when to try to bring him out of a
medically induced coma and assess the extent of brain damage from a severe
stroke. [Reuters]
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Dr. Shlomo
Mor-Yosef said Sharon remained in critical condition, but his vital signs,
including the pressure inside his skull, were normal. He said a brain scan taken
Sunday showed some improvement.
Bringing Sharon out of the coma is an important step toward assessing the
extent of brain damage he suffered from a massive stroke
Wednesday.
Doctors made the decision after Sharon underwent another brain
scan on Sunday.
One of Sharon's surgeons ruled out the possibility that
he would resume his duties. The surgeon, Dr. Jose Cohen, told Channel 2 TV that
Sharon's chances of survival are high, but that 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 Dr. Cohen told Spanish-language
reporters Saturday. His comments, which reinforced the widespread belief that
Sharon's days as prime minister are over, were published in The Jerusalem Post.
But a senior official at Hadassah Hospital's Ein Kerem branch, where Sharon
was being treated, said it was too early to assess Sharon's prospects for
survival.
"There was expression of hopes and thoughts ... in which some people
expressed optimism," said Dr. Yair Birenboim, director of the Ein Kerem unit.
"That was definitely an expression that we think was premature."
Sharon has been hospitalized since suffering a massive stroke on Wednesday
night. He has undergone two rounds of surgery to stop bleeding in the brain and
to relieve pressure inside his skull. Doctors have placed him in what they call
an induced coma — under heavy sedation and connected to a respirator — to give
him time to heal.
Sharon's medical team gathered early Sunday to decide when to lift the
sedation and pull him out of the coma, Hadassah Hospital spokesman Ron Krumer
said. They suspended the meeting after about an hour for the brain scan, and
were scheduled to reconvene later in the day, he added.
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