Sharon suffers ‘significant’ stroke

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon today suffered a “significant” stroke with “massive bleeding” in his brain, a hospital official said.

Dr Shlomo Mor-Yosef said Sharon suffered a cerebral haemorrhage, was under general anaesthetic, receiving breathing assistance and was being taken for treatment.

Cabinet Secretary Yisrael Maimon said Sharon’s authorities have been transferred to his vice premier, Ehud Olmert.

In a brief statement outside the hospital, Dr Mor-Yosef said Sharon had suffered “a significant stroke,” adding that he was “under anaesthetic and receiving breathing assistance.”

A few minutes later, Dr Mor-Yosef emerged to say that initial tests showed Sharon had suffered a cerebral haemorrhage, or bleeding inside his brain.

Addressing reporters in English, Dr Mor-Yosef said Sharon had “massive bleeding and was being transferred to an operating theatre”.

Channel 2 TV said Sharon was suffering from paralysis in his lower body. Analysts on Israeli TV stations said he life could be in danger. Channel 2 TV said he was taken into the hospital on a stretcher.

Sharon (aged 77) is extremely overweight, but doctors checking him after the mild stroke on December 18 found him otherwise in good health.

Since then, his doctors said in a briefing a week ago, Sharon has lost several pounds.

The dramatic downturn in Sharon’s health comes as Sharon runs for re-election on March 28 at the head of a new centrist party, Kadima, and he enjoys a wide lead in the polls.

The party’s strength is centred on Sharon himself, and if he were forced to leave the scene then Israel’s political scene would be thrown into turmoil.

Sharon’s office said his personal physician was with him. He was taken by ambulance, a drive of more than an hour from his home in the Negev Desert in Israel’s south, instead of by helicopter.

On December 18, Sharon was taken to Hadassah Hospital from his office after suffering a mild stroke. Doctors said he would not suffer long-term effects from the stroke, but they discovered a birth defect in his heart that apparently contributed to the stroke.

Security agents and police spread out around the Jerusalem hospital before Sharon arrived today, setting up a security perimeter.

Since the first stroke, Sharon has been receiving blood thinners to try to prevent a recurrence of the clotting that caused the stroke.

Sharon was to check into the Jerusalem hospital on Thursday for a procedure to repair a tiny hole between the upper chambers of his heart.

Doctors said the blood clot that briefly lodged in Sharon’s brain on December 18, causing the stroke, made its way through the hole and from there to a cranial artery.