By Ana Ionova and Jack Nicas
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil was in stable condition Tuesday and recovering in an intensive care unit after emergency surgery to ease bleeding in his skull that doctors believe is connected to a fall he suffered at home in October, the doctors treating him said.
The surgery — to drain a hematoma, or pooling of blood — was “uneventful,” the doctors said, and Lula was in the intensive care unit at a hospital in São Paulo, where he will remain for the next 48 hours.
“The president is progressing well,” said Dr. Roberto Kalil, one of the doctors treating Lula. “He is now stable, talking normally, eating and will be under observation for the next few days.”
Lula, 79, went to Hospital Sírio-Libanês in Brasília, the country’s capital, Monday night with a severe headache and flulike malaise, according to his medical team. An MRI showed that he was suffering from an intracranial hemorrhage.
Lula was then transferred to a partner hospital in São Paulo for an operation that lasted about two hours, according to Kalil.
The surgery did not impact Lula’s brain functioning and left “no side effects, no change in movement, absolutely nothing,” Kalil said during a news conference Tuesday.
The surgery came about two months after Lula fell in a bathroom at the presidential residence while moving off a stool that he was sitting on to cut his nails, he has said in interviews.
He received several stitches to close a wound to the back of his head from the fall Oct. 19 and had been undergoing periodic MRI exams to check for signs of bleeding.
The type of bleeding experienced by Lula is not uncommon following such head injuries, according to Dr. Rogério Tuma, who is part of the medical team treating the president.
“This is a common type of complication; it can happen, especially in older people,” Tuma said, explaining that it can manifest in the weeks or months following a fall like the one suffered by Lula.
After the October accident, doctors advised Lula to stop traveling by plane, so he canceled trips to Russia and Azerbaijan for conferences in October and November.
“I’m taking preventive medicine. The doctors told me that it’s going to take 20 to 30 days to know the effects of the fall,” he said in a television interview last month. “So I can only say that it was a very strong blow.”
In the weeks since the fall, Lula has shown no obvious signs of impairment. Last month, he hosted the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro, welcoming world leaders, including President Joe Biden, and holding bilateral talks with allies.
As recently as Monday, Lula was carrying out official duties, signing decrees and posing for photos with his ministers.
Lula is expected to recover in the hospital in the coming days and return to Brasília as soon as next week. His doctors said Tuesday that he would be able to resume all activities following his recovery.
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