Brazil: Jair Bolsonaro has been discharged from the hospital

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL –  The president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, was discharged after two days of hospitalization following an intestinal obstruction that did not require surgery.

“Discharged now, thanks to all,” Bolsonaro announced on his social networks showing a photo on the patients’ bed surrounded by his doctors inside the Vila Nova Star Hospital in the city of São Paulo.

The president announced social networks, dressed in the jersey of the up-and-coming club Juventus from São Paulo.

The medical center did not immediately confirm the information about the discharge but said that Bolsonaro would soon hold a press conference “in the hospital cafeteria”.

In Tuesday’s medical report, doctors had reported that the president’s intestinal obstruction had been reversed and that he was responding well to the liquid diet prescribed for him.

Bolsonaro, 66, who was stabbed in the abdomen during the 2018 presidential campaign, was hospitalized early Monday morning after experiencing abdominal discomfort during his year-end vacation in Santa Catarina state.

After being hospitalized, he posted a photo showing him with a nasal probe and said he was undergoing tests for “possible surgery.”

But after examining him and giving an improvement in his condition, his doctor ruled out the need for surgery.

Amid a crisis in medical care capacity in hospitals and first aid rooms due to the explosion of flu and Covid 19 cases, Bolsonaro interrupted his vacation to be hospitalized early Monday morning for a bowel obstruction.

His eldest son, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, had anticipated on Tuesday that his father was close to being discharged but assured that he would suffer the consequences of the stabbing for the rest of his life.

“Not only physical but also the psychological shock. He gives up many things, he has a permanent food restriction, he has to maintain a certain routine,” he told the international network CNN.

The new medical complication forced Bolsonaro to interrupt his vacation on the beach in Sao Francisco do Sul, Santa Catarina state. He had spent New Year’s Eve jet skiing and at an amusement park. When he began to feel ill, he was taken urgently to the Vila Nova Star Hospital, where he had undergone surgery the last time.

Chief surgeon Antonio Luiz Macedo made the decision not to operate on him. This doctor worked on Bolsonaro after the stabbing he received in 2018, who had to travel urgently from the Bahamas, where he was on vacation.

Macedo arrived yesterday at the private medical center to rule out further surgery.

Bolsonaro was hospitalized amid a political and economic climate marked by the electoral campaign for the October 2 elections. He appears more than 20 points behind the favorite, former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of the Workers’ Party.