The president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, 79, rests in the intensive care unit of a hospital in São Paulo after undergoing emergency surgery to drain an intracranial hematoma, as reported this Tuesday at first hour the Syrian-Lebanese Hospital. The injury is the result of two months ago, when he fell on his back at his official residence in Brasilia.
The president was subjected to “a craniotomy at dawn to drain a hematoma. The surgery was uneventful. At this moment the president is fine, monitored in an ICU bed,” explains the report from the private medical center, the Syrian-Lebanese Hospital. Lula, who at the end of the day on Monday suffered a severe headache while dispatching normally, underwent surgery this morning after being urgently transferred on an Air Force plane from Brasilia to São Paulo. Doctors have stressed that Lula “has not suffered brain damage.”
The president’s personal doctor, Roberto Kalil, appeared before the press this Tuesday morning along with the rest of the professionals who care for the head of state. Kalil, a cardiologist, explained that Lula is awake, speaks and eats normally. He has also said that the leader of the Brazilian left and founder of the Workers’ Party (PT) will remain for a few days under observation in the ICU and that, for the moment, there is no date for his discharge. “If everything goes well, he will be able to return to Brasilia at the beginning of next week” to return to work little by little. Doctors do not expect consequences or complications.
The head of the medical team has added that there will be a daily report – the next one, tomorrow, Wednesday – unless there are unforeseen developments. “The president has ordered that clear and direct information be given about his state of health,” Kalil added. Lula is accompanied by a sociologist and one of his main political advisors.
The veteran politician had a frontoparietal hematoma, between the brain and a membrane of the meninge. The surgical procedure lasted two hours, to which he arrived lucid and oriented, although during the afternoon he had complained of a certain discomfort, nausea and flu symptoms. The team that treats him has stressed that a brain hemorrhage like this is a common complication after falls like the one suffered by Lula.
On October 19, Lula fell in a bathroom of his residence, the Alvorada Palace, in Brasilia, and suffered a severe blow that was followed by hemorrhage. He was taken to the hospital, where he received five stitches in the back of his neck and was advised to rest. He had to cancel the trip to Russia, which started in just a few hours, because his doctor recommended he avoid taking planes. That recommendation also prevented him from traveling to São Paulo to vote in the municipal elections.
This Monday, President Lula felt unwell while working at the Planalto palace, where he met throughout the day with several ministers and the presidents of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. He complained to his interlocutors of a headache and drowsiness, according to the local press. His medical team decided that he should go to the hospital to undergo some tests. An MRI detected the intracranial hemorrhage.
Immediately, an Air Force plane was mobilized in which last night it traveled the more than a thousand kilometers between Brasilia and São Paulo. During the trip he was conscious, according to the doctor who accompanied him. Transferred to the Syrian-Lebanese Hospital, he entered the operating room.
The vice president of the Government, Geraldo Alckmin, from the center-right and former rival of Lula, assumes his duties until he recovers. Alckmin has been in charge of receiving the Prime Minister of Slovakia, Robert Fico, on an official visit.
Since winning the elections in October 2022, Lula has undergone surgery three times. In November 2022, after an intense electoral campaign and years after being cured of throat cancer. In September 2023, he (and incidentally had cosmetic surgery on his eyelids) and has now had a brain hematoma drained. Despite his age, the Brazilian president is very active. He exercises daily, a habit he acquired during a later overturned conviction.
Lula, who is halfway through his third presidential term, maintains an intense agenda with multiple trips abroad. The last month has been hectic. At the end of November, it hosted the great political event of the year in Brazil: the G-20 meeting in Rio de Janeiro, attended by the leaders of the most developed countries. And last week he was in Paraguay, where the European Union and Mercosur will create the largest free trade area in the world.
Lula has two years left in his term. Although the withdrawal of the American Joe Biden, three years older, made a deep impression on him, the Brazilian does not rule out running for re-election. At least until he went into surgery again this Tuesday. He loves to say that he intends to live to be 120 years old. The PT leader has always resisted building a good successor for fear that he would be overshadowed. Without expressing it openly, indications are that his favorite is Fernando Haddad, Minister of Finance and presidential candidate when he was in prison. But he lacks charisma and his mentor, for the moment, has not given any sign that retiring is in his plans for the coming years.
