Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, whose doctors began trying last week to bring him out of a state of induced coma, still shows no significant signs of reviving.
A senior physician who is an expert in intensive care and comas told Haaretz on Sunday that, according to reports by doctors treating Sharon, if the prime minister's condition persists into next week (he is still unconscious and connected to a respirator), he may be defined as being in a vegetative state.
After previously stopping Sharon's sedation, doctors Sunday placed him under general anesthesia in order to perform a tracheotomy - cutting a small opening in the neck and inserting a tube directly into his windpipe.
Up until the operation, Sharon had breathed through a tube in his nostrils or mouth, with the help of a respirator. But such methods can only be used for a week or two without incurring possible injury.
According to the physician: ‘Few people of Sharon's age have regained consciousness after such a massive stroke as the one the prime minister had, especially after three emergency operations.’
The doctor added that when he has to speak to the family of an individual in such a situation, he tells them: ‘He will not fully regain consciousness. He may be able to breath alone and will not need equipment, but he will remain severely disabled.’
A senior Health Ministry official told Haaretz on Sunday that he thought the cabinet should establish a commission that will investigate the treatment Sharon has received at Hadassah University Hospital, the functioning of his two personal physicians and various governmental, public and medical questions.
The senior official said the matter of the non-disclosure of some of the information about Sharon's condition should be examined, along with: the decision to administer blood thinners to the prime minister, despite the vascular disease in his brain; the controversial decision to perform a catheterization to repair the hole in his heart; his release from hospital and quick return to work after his first stroke; and the fact that he stayed at his home in Sycomore Ranch in the Negev, far from Hadassah.
The official said the concern in the public's mind that the non-disclosure of information and controversial medical decisions had harmed Sharon might bring about a crisis of faith in the medical establishment and the government.
In response to a Haaretz request to interview the physicians treating Sharon, a Hadassah spokesman, Ron Krumer, said that the doctors would answer questions only if there were a change in Sharon's condition, and that staff at Hadassah would not respond to questions raised in Haaretz about the quality of care Sharon was receiving. ‘We have a great deal to say, but we will say it when we think the time is right,’ Krumer added.