Doctors working to gradually wean Peres off life-support
Following CT scan Sunday morning, former president’s condition still ‘serious but stable’
Former president Shimon Peres was still in stable condition after completing a CT scan Sunday morning, with doctors working to reduce his anesthesia and take him off a respirator.
The 93-year-old Peres was hospitalized at the Sheba Medical Center near Tel Aviv on Tuesday after suffering a stroke. He has been under sedation since then, with his condition consistently described as serious but stable.
“Following several medical tests conducted and after assessing the ninth president’s neurological condition, his medical team has decided to gradually reduce the respiratory support as well as the level of anesthesia currently being administered to President Shimon Peres,” a statement from his office said.
Peres’s office also said Saturday that he remained in serious but stable condition throughout the weekend.
President Reuven Rivlin visited his predecessor at the hospital on Saturday evening, saying he was a “fighter” who, if it were up to him, would prevail.
“I came this evening to encourage the family and give them strength,” he said. “We all hope to see the ninth president get better.”
Meanwhile, a senior neurologist at the Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem said Peres’s condition had likely moved “from the acute to the chronic” — meaning he was likely no longer in life-threatening danger but now faced more protracted health challenges.
Prof. Avinoam Reches told the Walla news website Saturday that “when a man suffers such massive bleeding there is immediate danger to his life. I am not the doctor in attendance and his medical file is not open to me, but according to reports coming from the hospital, our friends in Sheba worked correctly and succeeded in stabilizing his condition, so the immediate danger has passed.
“Peres,” Reches said, “is still in danger, but his main enemies now are the inevitable infections coming from a long hospitalization and the development of an edema around the hematoma in his head [a swelling around blood vessels affected by the stroke].”
AFP contributed to this report.
The Times of Israel Community.