Doctors admit failure in treating Sharon

Doctors have admitted making a mistake when they treated then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon with large doses of blood thinners after a mild stroke, according to a TV investigation broadcast today.

Sharon has been comatose since suffering a massive stroke on January 4.

Channel 2 TV quoted doctors who treated Sharon at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Hospital as saying that the anticoagulants given him after a minor blood clot two weeks earlier might have caused the debilitating hemorrhagic stroke.

The TV station broadcast brief excerpts of the report today, promising fuller versions on Friday and again next week.

One of the doctors interviewed, Dr Yoram Weiss, spoke of a “great failure” in the treatment of Sharon, 78, who was at the height of his political power when he was stricken.

For two weeks, Sharon received two injections daily of a powerful anticoagulant after his first stroke, described as minor.

He was to re-enter the hospital on January 5 for a heart procedure designed to correct a defect that might have led to the clot that caused the first stroke.

The large doses of anticoagulants came under stiff criticism after Sharon suffered massive cerebral bleeding the day before he was to report back to the hospital.

The TV report said Sharon is in a vegetative state. He is to be moved soon to the long-term-care unit of Tel Hashomer Hospital outside Tel Aviv and from there to his home at a ranch in southern Israel, the report said.

Hadassah Hospital spokesmen were unavailable for comment.

Experts have said that the longer Sharon remains in a coma, the less his chances of recovery or even regaining consciousness.

Sharon’s closest political ally, Ehud Olmert, took over as acting prime minister.

Last month Olmert led the party Sharon created just a few months earlier to an election victory, and Olmert is negotiating with other parties to form a new coalition government.