SAO PAULO, Jan 5 — Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro will not need surgery after being hospitalised for an intestinal obstruction that has now been cleared, his medical team said yesterday.
The blockage was Bolsonaro’s latest complication from a 2018 stabbing.
Sao Paulo’s Vila Nova Star hospital said in a bulletin that Bolsonaro was doing well on a liquid diet and doctors had removed a nasogastric tube that was inserted when he was hospitalised early on Monday.
“The president’s digestive tract is showing signs of recovery,” the bulletin issued by his medical team said. It added that there was still no timeframe for his discharge.
The decision not to operate on Bolsonaro came after he was re-evaluated by his doctor, Antonio Macedo, who was vacationing in the Bahamas and arrived in Sao Paulo on Tuesday morning.
Bolsonaro has undergone a series of emergency operations since being knifed during a campaign event in September 2018.
The Brazilian president said on Twitter on Monday that he started feeling unwell on Sunday after lunch. He had been vacationing in the southern state of Santa Catarina and was urgently taken to Sao Paulo by plane.
Bolsonaro noted it was his second hospitalisation “with the same symptoms” in a few months. In July 2021, he was taken to the Vila Nova Star for an intestinal blockage after suffering chronic hiccups.
Bolsonaro has been in power since 2019 and plans to stand for re-election as president in a vote scheduled for October this year. — Reuters
