Brazilian president is doing well and should be discharged early next week, his medical team says.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has undergone a second surgical procedure after seeking treatment this week for an intracranial haemorrhage, his medical team said.
Lula’s personal doctor, Roberto Kalil, said during a news conference on Thursday that the follow-up procedure to block blood flow to the affected area was a “success”.
“The president is awake and speaking,” Kalil told reporters at the Hospital Sirio-Libanes in Sao Paulo where Lula, 79, is being treated.
The president was transported to the hospital from the capital Brasilia earlier this week after he experienced headaches that his doctors linked to a recent fall.
Lula, who was sworn in as president in early 2023, had curtailed travel in recent months after he suffered trauma to the back of his head when he fell at home in late October.
The left-wing leader hit his head after falling in a bathroom at the presidential residence and received several stitches.
On Thursday, Lula’s doctors stressed that he was doing well physically and mentally, and should soon be able to return to his duties.
During the latest surgery, doctors inserted a catheter in Lula’s femoral artery to block blood flow going through the middle meningeal artery in his head, to minimise the risk of a haemorrhage reoccurring.
Kalil described the procedure as “routine” and “minimally invasive”, carried out under sedation rather than anaesthesia. The catheter was likely to be removed later on Thursday.
“If everything continues as it is, at the beginning of next week the president should be discharged” from the Sao Paulo hospital, Kalil said.
“He will gradually resume his normal activity,” the doctor added, noting that although Lula would be able to work, his convalescence would still require “relative rest over several weeks”.
Neurologist Rogerio Tuma also said on Thursday that the Brazilian president’s “neurological examination is normal”.
“He is very well,” Tuma added, but “he should not exert himself physically or mentally.”
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