Ariel Sharon emerged from hours of surgery Thursday morning with vital signs showing proper levels, but the prime minister's condition remained grave, said Professor Shlomo Mor-Yosef, director of Hadassah University Hospital, Ein Karem.
Neurosurgeons had fought to stabilize Sharon's condition and stop new bleeding detected in his brain Thursday morning, more than eight hours after the prime minister was rushed into emergency surgery having suffered a ‘far-reaching’ stroke and a massive brain hemorrhage.
In an earlier announcement on Sharon's condition, Mor-Yosef said that the prime minister had been taken back to the operating room following a CT scan administered after more than six hours of surgery.
‘We are in the continuation of this operation,’ Mor-Yosef told reporters. ‘There are additional areas that must be treated.’
‘We expect the surgery will take several more hours. The prime minister is sedated and on a respirator. One could say his condition is grave,’ Mor-Yosef said.
In addition to the surgery, Sharon was receiving medication to counter the bleeding, and the drugs would take several hours to have an effect, Mor-Yosef said.
Olmert becomes acting prime minister
On Wednesday night, Sharon's prime ministerial authority was transferred to Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in the course of a telephone call with Olmert, Maimon and Attorney General Menachem Mazuz.
Olmert was to hold an emergency cabinet meeting at 9 A.M. Thursday.
Sharon was rushed to the hospital shortly before 11 P.M. Wednesday night after complaining of chest pains, less than three weeks after suffering a mild stroke and the day before he had been set to undergo a heart procedure.
At around 5:30 A.M. Thursday, Sharon's physician, Professor Bolek Goldman, left the hospital accompanied by Cabinet Secretary Yisrael Maimon and the prime minister's political advisor, Erez Halfon.
Goldman had said Wednesday night that he expected Sharon ‘to emerge from [surgery] safely.’
The three refused to answer questions about the prime minister's surgery, which ended a short time later.
Gissin stressed, however, that the government was functioning despite Sharon's illness. ‘A state isn't run only by the people who stand at its head... all the ministers and all the ministries are functioning - whether that's the Defense Ministry, the Health Ministry, the Foreign Ministry, the Interior Ministry - there's no power vacuum situation in a democratic state like Israel.’
‘The prime minister has fought many battles and he has survived them all, and I think that he will win this battle too,’ he concluded.
Channel 2 television said Wednesday night that Sharon was suffering from paralysis in his lower body. Analysts on local television stations speculated that his life could be in danger.
PM taken by ambulance from his ranch
Sharon arrived at the hospital by ambulance from his Sycamore Ranch in the Negev, a drive of more than an hour, and was taken into the emergency room, where he had been scheduled to undergo a cardiac catheterization Thursday afternoon.
Channel One television reported Thursday morning that Sharon at first resisted efforts to take him to hospital, insisting that he felt well enough to remain at home.
Once Sharon arrived at the hospital, it became clear that the severity of his condition necessitated general anesthesia, and Maimon and Mazuz decided they had no choice but to transfer Sharon's powers to Olmert. Sharon had finished working at 3 P.M. Wednesday and traveled to his ranch. He was supposed to have begun fasting at midnight, ahead of the heart procedure.
A medical team gathered around Sharon, who was accompanied by his son Omri, as he came out of the ambulance, and witnesses said he was brought into the hospital on a stretcher.
Meanwhile, there was debate in Israeli media Thursday over Sharon's evacuation. Some commentators argued that Sharon should have been taken to hospital in Be'er Sheva, a much shorter distance from his ranch, or airlifted by helicopter rather than evacuated by ambulance.
Sharon, 77, was to have undergone a cardiac catheterization procedure scheduled for Thursday afternoon. It was intended to close a small hole between the upper chambers of Sharon's heart, detected when he suffered a mild stroke last month.
He was to have been put under general anesthesia during the operation, and his authority would have rested with Olmert for about three hours.