Brazilian president in intensive care after emergency brain surgery
10 December 2024, 12:32 | Updated: 10 December 2024, 12:58
The Brazilian president is in intensive care after undergoing emergency surgery on his brain.
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Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva had an operation to drain blood from his brain after suffering an intracranial haemorrhage
The procedure was performed after the 79-year-old leader felt headaches doctors believed resulted from a fall at home in October.
The Sirio-Libanes hospital said Mr Da Silva, known as Lula, who travelled from the capital Brasilia to be treated in Sao Paulo 620 miles away, is "well, under monitoring in an ICU bed" after the bleeding was drained.
Lula cancelled a trip to Russia for a intergovernmental Brics summit after the accident, his office said at the time. It left him with a cut visible on the back of his head, slightly above his neck.
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The Brazilian president is now recovering "well, under monitoring in an ICU bed", the hospital said.
Presidential spokesperson Paulo Pimenta said that Lula was likely to remain in hospital for another 48 hours, and will only have contact with his medical team during that period.
"He is stable, conscious and calm," Mr Pimenta added.
Lula has been in power since the start of last year after narrowly defeating right-wing Jair Bolsonaro, in a tight election.
He was elected president for the first time in 2002, and was re-elected in 2006, before stepping down in 2010.
Lula spent 580 days in prison after being convicted of money laundering and corruption charges in 2017.
His convictions were overturned in 2021 by Brazil's Supreme Court, which found that the cases against him were biased.
