Ariel Sharon’s Condition Deteriorating
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
TEL AVIV, Israel — Prime Minister Sharon’s medical condition has deteriorated in the past two days, more than half a year after he underwent brain surgery because of a massive stroke, a hospital official said.
Doctors found “a deterioration in the cerebral tissue” and said Mr. Sharon’s kidney function worsened, a spokesman for Tel Hashomer hospital in a suburb east of Tel Aviv, Orly Levy, said.
She gave no further information.
Mr. Sharon, 78, was moved to a long-term care facility in May from the Jerusalem hospital where he had been in a coma since suffering a massive stroke.
A career general who was elected prime minister in 2001, Mr. Sharon underwent emergency brain surgery January 4 that left him in a coma.
The stroke came two months after he broke from the Likud Party that he founded in 1973 and started the Kadima Party, which won Israel’s March 28 parliamentary elections.
Ehud Olmert, Mr. Sharon’s deputy prime minister, took over as acting prime minister and formally succeeded Mr. Sharon as premier on May 4 when his Cabinet was approved by parliament.
