An operation on ailing Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was delayed yesterday after doctors found an infection in his upper respiratory tract, hospital officials said.
Sharon, 78, has been comatose since suffering a stroke on Jan. 4. Doctors yesterday had planned to reattach a portion of his skull removed immediately after the stroke. It would have been his eighth surgery since falling ill.
Hadassah Hospital spokesman Ron Krumer said the surgery would be postponed until the infection, common in patients in Sharon's condition, is gone. The infection, discovered in a routine exam early yesterday, was being treated with antibiotics, he added.
"There are no rules to how long it could take to go away. It could take one day, it could take two days, it could take two weeks," Krumer said.
Krumer said the planned operation was routine treatment for people in Sharon's condition, noting that "every opening in the body is a source for infection."
"It's his. We have to give it back at some point. We have to reattach the skull," Krumer said. He declined to say why doctors decided now was the time to reattach the skull.
"There are risks. There is no surgery without risks. The minute that you treat a person, and especially in his head, there are risks," Krumer said.
Sharon has been treated at Hadassah since the stroke. Israel's Army Radio reported that the reattachment of the skull was the last step before Sharon is moved to a long-term care facility.
Krumer refused to confirm the report, but experts in long-term care have examined Sharon in recent weeks.
The stroke suddenly removed the popular prime minister from Israel's political landscape, shortly after he formed the centrist Kadima Party. The stroke shocked Israelis, many of whom believed the ex-general would bring them a more secure future.
Kadima won last week's Israeli election, although by a smaller margin than was expected when Sharon headed the movement. Analysts have said the party's popularity was a result of Sharon's legacy.
ANGER: A video shared online showed residents in a neighborhood confronting the national security minister, attempting to drag her toward floodwaters Argentina’s port city of Bahia Blanca has been “destroyed” after being pummeled by a year’s worth of rain in a matter of hours, killing 13 and driving hundreds from their homes, authorities said on Saturday. Two young girls — reportedly aged four and one — were missing after possibly being swept away by floodwaters in the wake of Friday’s storm. The deluge left hospital rooms underwater, turned neighborhoods into islands and cut electricity to swaths of the city. Argentine Minister of National Security Patricia Bullrich said Bahia Blanca was “destroyed.” The death toll rose to 13 on Saturday, up from 10 on Friday, authorities
Local officials from Russia’s ruling party have caused controversy by presenting mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine with gifts of meat grinders, an appliance widely used to describe Russia’s brutal tactics on the front line. The United Russia party in the northern Murmansk region posted photographs on social media showing officials smiling as they visited bereaved mothers with gifts of flowers and boxed meat grinders for International Women’s Day on Saturday, which is widely celebrated in Russia. The post included a message thanking the “dear moms” for their “strength of spirit and the love you put into bringing up your sons.” It
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
In front of a secluded temple in southwestern China, Duan Ruru skillfully executes a series of chops and strikes, practicing kung fu techniques she has spent a decade mastering. Chinese martial arts have long been considered a male-dominated sphere, but a cohort of Generation Z women like Duan is challenging that assumption and generating publicity for their particular school of kung fu. “Since I was little, I’ve had a love for martial arts... I thought that girls learning martial arts was super swaggy,” Duan, 23, said. The ancient Emei school where she trains in the mountains of China’s Sichuan Province
RSS