Alsharq Tribune- Mohamed Essam
The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, is recovering in intensive care having undergone emergency surgery after a brain bleed was detected during an MRI scan. At about 9.20am local time (1220 GMT) the medical team at Sírio-Libanês hospital in São Paulo held a press conference to announce that surgery to drain a haematoma caused by bleeding in the president’s brain had been successful.
“The president has progressed well; he returned from surgery almost fully awake and has been extubated,” said Lula’s personal doctor, the cardiologist Dr Roberto Kalil. He added that Lula “is now stable, speaking normally, eating, and will remain under observation in the coming days”.
According to the doctors, Lula, 79, underwent a trepanation: having a 3cm hole made in the skull to insert a drain to remove the bleeding.
The doctors attributed the intracranial haemorrhage to a domestic accident to a fall Lula had in October while taking a shower in the Alvorada Palace, the official presidential residence in Brasília. The accident forced Lula to cancel a trip to a Brics summit in Russia and left him with several stitches.
Lula was admitted to hospital in Brasília on Monday night after complaining of a headache. When the haemorrhage was detected he was transferred 620 miles (1,000km) south to one of Brazil’s top hospitals for the operation.
