MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Bolsonaro dodges surgery but stays hospitalized

Macedo said “the intestinal obstruction was dissolved and surgery was ruled out”

Physicians treating Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro Tuesday ruled out a new surgery and said the patient was recovering from yet another intestinal obstruction which required an emergency hospitalization earlier this week.

“The intestinal subocclusion picture” of the president “was reversed, so surgery is not indicated,” the Vila Nova Star Hospital said in a statement. “The clinical and laboratory evolution of the patient continues to be satisfactory and now he will start a liquid diet. He is not yet scheduled to be discharged,” the medical report went on.

Bolsonaro, 66, who was stabbed in the abdomen during the 2018 presidential campaign, was rushed to the hospital early Monday after complaining of abdominal discomfort during his vacation in the southern state of Santa Catarina.

Surgeon Antonio Luiz Macedo, who has treated Bolsonaro since the 2018 incident had to cut short his holidays in Bahamas and returned to Brazil to examine the President.

Pictures posted on social media show Macedo performing an abdominal checkup palpation on the head of state or the President walking around the clinic with IVs in his arm.

Bolsonaro also tweeted about the approval of a fiscal regulation for the import of scientific material, as if he intended to prove he was still running the country from his hospital bed.

The President had already been admitted in mid-July at the same clinic to be treated for an intestinal obstruction. After four days during which he was treated so as to avoid surgery, he was discharged. Due to the stabbing in 2018, Bolsonaro needed four surgeries and is prone to intestinal disorders.

The president had been on vacation since December 27 in the state of Santa Catarina, in southern Brazil, but was heavily criticized for staying there instead of showing up at the state of Bahia which was -and still is- going through an unprecedented rainfall crisis which have left over 90,000 people evacuated. Bolsonaro took additional flak when he turned down Argentina's humanitarian and sanitary help for the Bahia victims.

Macedo said the patient “will continue with clinical treatment, the intestinal obstruction was dissolved and surgery was ruled out for the time being.”