The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, is recovering in intensive care having undergone emergency surgery after a brain bleed was detected during an MRI scan.
At about 9.20am local time (1220 GMT) the medical team at Sírio-Libanês hospital in São Paulo held a press conference to announce that surgery to drain a haematoma caused by bleeding in the president’s brain had been successful.
“The president has progressed well; he returned from surgery almost fully awake and has been extubated,” said Lula’s personal doctor, the cardiologist Dr Roberto Kalil. He added that Lula “is now stable, speaking normally, eating, and will remain under observation in the coming days”.
According to the doctors, Lula, 79, underwent a trepanation: having a 3cm hole made in the skull to insert a drain to remove the bleeding.
The doctors attributed the intracranial haemorrhage to a domestic accident to a fall Lula had in October while taking a shower in the Alvorada Palace, the official presidential residence in Brasília. The accident forced Lula to cancel a trip to a Brics summit in Russia and left him with several stitches.
Lula was admitted to hospital in Brasília on Monday night after complaining of a headache. When the haemorrhage was detected he was transferred 620 miles (1,000km) south to one of Brazil’s top hospitals for the operation.
The newspaper O Globo said Lula arrived in São Paulo at about 11pm on Monday and by 4.45am he had undergone the surgery. “Throughout the journey, both by ambulance and by air, the president was lucid, alert and speaking, just as he is now – lucid, alert, speaking and eating,” said Dr Ana Helena Germoglio, who was the first to attend Lula after his fall in October and again on Monday.
Lula was accompanied on the journey and in the hospital by the first lady, Rosângela da Silva, known as Janja.
Kalil repeatedly emphasised during the press conference that the president “suffered no brain injury and has no neurological impairment”. He said the haematoma was “completely drained”.
The president will remain under observation in the intensive care unit for at least 48 hours and is only expected to return to Brasília – where the executive branch headquarters and the presidential residence are located – at the beginning of next week, the doctor said.
Lula’s personal doctor also said that, if all went well, the president would be able to resume air travel, including international trips.
“He spoke with me normally [this morning]. He understands what happened and asked the usual questions a patient would after undergoing surgery. The fact that he’s staying in the ICU under monitoring is primarily for safety. It’s protocol,” Kalil said.
A medical bulletin is expected to be released early on Wednesday morning.
