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SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will undergo a new procedure on Thursday morning to supplement surgery he underwent this week to drain blood from his brain, a hospital said on Wednesday in a medical update that highlighted yes it went well.
Doctors operated on the left-wing leader for about two hours on Tuesday to drain bleeding between his brain and meningeal membrane, which doctors said was linked to a fall at his home in late October.
Thursday’s endovascular procedure will help reduce the risk of future bleeding, his personal physician Roberto Khalil Filho told reporters on Wednesday.
Doctors will hold a post-surgery press conference on Thursday, the hospital said.
Khalil said the procedure – middle meningeal artery embolization – is “relatively simple” and “low risk”, adding that it should take about an hour.
The follow-up procedure has been discussed by doctors since Tuesday’s surgery and does not represent a worsening of Lula’s health situation, Kalil said.
“We waited to see that the president was recovering well before we decided to proceed with the procedure,” he said.
Sao Paulo’s Sirio-Libanes Hospital said in an updated note that the 79-year-old president was in intensive care but had no complications during the day, when he was walking, receiving visits from family members and undergoing physiotherapy.
The emergency surgery raised concerns about the health of the elderly president, an icon of the Latin American left who is halfway through his final term after previously serving in the role from 2003 to 2011.
Earlier in the day, a previous medical note said Lula was lucid and talking after an overnight hospital stay and had not experienced complications after surgery.
