Shimon Peres released from hospital in good health
Former prime minister and president, 92, had been hospitalized with mild cardiac arrhythmia
Former president and prime minister Shimon Peres was released from the hospital Tuesday, having spent two nights under observation after complaining of chest pains earlier this week.
Peres was admitted to Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer, just outside Tel Aviv, on Sunday evening, following a slight heart arrhythmia. His admission comes just over a week after suffering a mild heart attack. He remained in the hospital an extra day for observation at the request of the medical team.
According to Peres’s doctors, all test results were normal.
On Monday, a doctor treating Peres said his patient was “doing great” after spending the night in the hospital. Peres’s personal physician, Raphi Walden, told Army Radio that Peres’s heart rate had returned to normal.
On January 14, Peres was rushed to the Tel Hashomer hospital after complaining of chest pains. On discovering that he had a narrowed artery, doctors performed cardiac catheterization and kept him in the hospital for observation and tests for five days.
When he left the Ramat Gan hospital, Peres issued a short statement thanking the medical and nursing teams, and saying their treatment reminded him of the “spirit of the founder of Tel Hashomer, who said that everyone was equal and that you had to treat the patient, not the illness — to treat the people themselves.”
Peres had been scheduled to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland last week, but canceled the trip at his doctor’s recommendation.
Peres, now retired, had a 55-year political career, most recently as Israel’s president from 2007 to 2014. He remains active through his non-governmental Peres Center for Peace, which promotes coexistence between Arabs and Jews. Considered the last surviving member of Israel’s founding fathers, he served as prime minister twice — from 1984 to 1986 as part of a rotational government, and for a few months in 1995 and 1996 after the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. He spent most of his career in the Labor Party.
Several weeks ago, rumors flooded the Internet that Peres, who has remained active despite his age, had died. A spokesman quashed the claims, poking fun at the reports.
“Shimon Peres would like to clarify that he is alive and well,” a statement from his office said. “The only thing preoccupying him at this moment is his dinner.”
