Sick Sharon responds to pain stimuli

Doctors are continuing to reduce Ariel Sharon’s anaesthetics today, a day after Israel’s prime minister took a small step towards recovery from a massive stroke.

Sharon slightly moved an arm and leg in response to pain stimulation, but doctors said it would be days before they could assess damage to his brain, critical to determining his political future and that of Israel and the region.

A statement from Jerusalem’s Hadassah Hospital early today said Sharon’s condition, unchanged overnight, was critical but stable.

Doctors said yesterday that the slight progress Sharon showed after they began withdrawing sedatives that had kept him in a coma since the stroke on Wednesday was just the beginning. Considering the amount of bleeding and the many hours surgeons spent trying to stop it, doctors doubt he will recover enough to resume his duties.

In that case Israel’s Cabinet would have to choose a premier to serve until March 28 elections, and the campaign, on hold because of Sharon’s illness, could get under way. Acting premier Ehud Olmert is his logical successor.

Sharon was expected to win in a landslide at the head of his new, centrist Kadima Party, but without him, it would be a wide-open race – just as Sharon’s absence from Middle East diplomacy, after his unprecedented unilateral pull-out from Gaza and part of the West Bank in the summer, would throw peace efforts into disarray.

The Palestinians’ political future, which was to be decided in parliament elections on January 25 also appeared in limbo.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas reiterated that the vote would take place on time, but interior minister Nasser Yousef warned his security forces would not be able to protect polling stations against gunmen.

Abbas’ Fatah Party fears it will be embarrassed by the Islamic militant Hamas in the election, and there is concern Fatah-linked gangs will attack polling stations if defeat becomes apparent.

Meanwhile, US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice is sending two envoys to the Middle East to try to resolve an Israeli-Palestinian dispute over the participation of Arab residents of Jerusalem in the election.

Former US president Bill Clinton said Sharon’s stroke was a blow to peace efforts. “All of us who believe in peace in the Middle East are in his debt, and so more than anything else, I pray for his health,” he said.

In the Gaza Strip, where Sharon is reviled for his tough policies on Palestinians, 40 masked gunmen from the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades militant group held a demonstration against the Israeli prime minister. One held a gun to a photo of Sharon that was labelled “the killer of children” and then burned the picture.

Yesterday, doctors at Hadassah Hospital began gradually reducing Sharon’s sedatives to rouse him from the induced coma he has been in for five days so they can assess brain damage. They said they would not have a full picture for several days.

“We are just at the beginning of a very long way,” said his chief surgeon, Dr Felix Umansky. “It’s too early to talk about the cognitive issue.”

After the level of sedatives dropped, Sharon started breathing on his own, but remains on a respirator and unconscious. He also lifted his right hand and leg slightly in response to pain stimulation, said Dr Shlomo Mor-Yosef, the director of Hadassah.

Sharon’s response was a “very important” sign and indicated his brain stem was working, but it was still too early to assess what impact the massive bleeding he suffered in his right brain would have on his cognitive abilities or on the left side of his body, Umansky said. Doctors would continue lowering the level of sedatives in Sharon’s body over the next several days, he said.

“His chances of survival are better than if the respiratory centre had been damaged, but that still doesn’t mean he’s going to survive,” said Dr John Martin, a professor of cardiovascular medicine at University College in London. Martin said Sharon’s weight and age worked against him.

Israel TV’s Channel 2 quoted Sharon’s advisers, who are keeping watch by his side, as saying he also responded to words in some fashion. Classical music, including Mozart, is being played in Sharon’s room.

The doctors’ final assessment on Sharon’s brain damage will be presented to attorney general Meni Mazuz, who will then decide whether to declare the prime minister permanently incapacitated.

In the event of such a ruling, the Cabinet would have to elect a new prime minister within 24 hours, from among the five sitting Kadima Cabinet ministers who are also MPs, said justice ministry spokesman Yaakov Galanti.

Olmert, who is among the five, was named acting prime minister after Sharon’s stroke, and can serve in the role for 100 days, which would carry him through the elections.