Stricken Sharon may emerge from coma today

Doctors are to decide today when to begin bringing Prime Minister Ariel Sharon out of a medically-induced coma more than three days after he suffered a massive stroke – a key to assessing how much brain damage he has suffered.

Sharon’s chances of surviving are very high, but cognitive impairment is assured, an Israeli television station quoted one of his surgeons as saying.

Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was to convene the Israeli Cabinet for its weekly session this morning, a government statement said.

Sharon, 77, remained in critical condition, but his vital signs were stable and a brain scan yesterday showed swelling had gone down slightly, the director of Hadassah Hospital, Dr. Shlomo Mor-Yosef, told the legion of journalists camped out at the hospital. He said doctors would meet this morning to decide about further treatment, including bringing Sharon out of the coma.

Dr. Jose Cohen, one of Sharon’s surgeons, told Channel 2 TV he was “quite optimistic” about Sharon’s prospects for survival.

“I think his chances of survival are very high now,” Cohen said.

But when asked about possible cognitive impairment, he replied, “To say after such a severe trauma as this that there will be no cognitive problems is simply not to recognise the reality.”

The comments reinforced a widespread assumption that Sharon will never return to power. Since Wednesday’s stroke, Israelis from all walks of life have lamented Sharon’s likely departure from the political scene because, with his larger-than life persona and warrior credentials, Sharon was widely seen as the man most capable of untangling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Before his collapse, Sharon appeared headed to win a third term in office at the head of a new centrist party he formed to build on the momentum created by his unprecedented summer withdrawal of soldiers and settlers from the Gaza Strip.

At synagogues throughout Israel on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, worshippers set aside political differences and prayed for Sharon’s health.