Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is in intensive care at a hospital in Sao Paulo after undergoing a craniotomy to drain a subdural hematoma, possibly linked to a fall he suffered on October 19 at his home, according to a statement released by the Syrian-Lebanese Hospital.
The medical center said that the president was admitted to the hospital headquarters in the capital, Brasilia, on Monday night to “undergo an examination after having a headache” and added that “the magnetic resonance imaging showed an intracranial hemorrhage due to the domestic accident he suffered on October 19.”
“He was transferred to the unit in Sao Paulo at the Syrian-Lebanese Hospital, where he underwent a craniotomy to drain the hematoma,” it stressed, before stating that “the surgery took place without complications.” “At the moment, the president is well and is being monitored in the ICU,” he added.
In this regard, he said that in the next few hours he will publish a new medical report with an update on the president’s condition and announced that a press conference will be held early on Tuesday (local time), according to the statement, published through Lula da Silva’s account on the social network X.
The fall suffered on October 19 already caused the Brazilian president to cancel his trip to Russia to participate in the BRICS+ summit, because his medical team recommended that he not make long-distance trips after suffering a “blunt injury to the occipital region.”
Lula da Silva hit his head in the bathtub of the official residence and, although he did not lose consciousness, he required five stitches in the back, as detailed by his personal doctor, Roberto Kalil Filho, who also said that “a small amount of bleeding had been identified in the front of the skull,” something common in this type of injury.
Later, the president headed the events of the G20 leaders’ summit held in mid-November in Rio de Janeiro, which he opened with a speech in which he focused on the fight against hunger, the climate crisis and criticizing the investment in wars to the detriment of issues that affect the most vulnerable populations.
