Israel's Sharon still in coma, doctors concerned

JERUSALEM - Doctors tending to Ariel Sharon are concerned that the Israeli prime minister has not shown signs of emerging from a coma and may take longer than hoped to regain consciousness, hospital sources said today.

Neurologists at Jerusalem's Hadassah hospital tested Sharon's responses to pain, sound and other stimuli to see if he would wake from a medically induced coma after suffering a massive stroke on Jan. 4.

A week into a health crisis that has cast a shadow over Middle East peacemaking and a forthcoming Israeli election, doctors yesterday had reduced sedatives that kept 77-year-old Sharon in an unconscious state.

But Sharon has yet to open his eyes after sedatives were cut to a minimal level. He responded to pain stimuli on both sides of his body earlier in the week but apparently has not made notable progress since then.

"The doctors are saying that as more time passes and he doesn't wake up, it's more worrisome," a hospital source said. Israeli media reported concern was rising, but noted that patients may take days or even weeks to wake from an induced coma.

Outside medical experts explained Sharon was undergoing a crucial transition as sedatives were reduced. Even if he regains consciousness, it could be days before doctors can assess the impairment to his faculties.

"The brain damage is apparently more severe and if there hasn't been an improvement until now, if there will be an improvement, it will take a long time," Amos Korchin, head of the neurology faculty at Tel Aviv University, told Channel One Television.

A Hadassah spokeswoman declined comment beyond a statement that said there had been no change in Sharon's condition, which had been listed as critical but stable.

Medical experts do not expect Sharon will be capable of returning to political life. Interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is likely to lead Sharon's newly formed Kadima party into Israel's general election on March 28.

Meanwhile, Israel's political parties commenced primary elections to select candidates for the March vote. Opinion polls continued to predict victory for Sharon's centrist Kadima party.

A Maariv newspaper poll showed Kadima winning 43 seats in the 120-member parliament under Olmert. Labour would win 17 seats and the right-wing Likud party, which won 40 in the last election, would fall to 16.

In other political developments, Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom handed in his resignation on Friday, opening the way for a reshuffle in Israel's caretaker government.

Shalom was the last of four cabinet ministers from Likud to resign from the government upon the orders of leader Benjamin Netanyahu, who will become opposition leader until the election.

Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, a former operative in the Mossad intelligence agency, is expected to take Shalom's place until the election, media reports said.

She is considered likely to stay in the role if Kadima wins and would be the second woman, after Golda Meir, to serve as Israel's foreign minister.

Signalling Washington's desire to keep Middle East diplomacy moving, US envoys Elliot Abrams and David Welch met Olmert to discuss a Palestinian parliamentary ballot on Jan. 25.

Olmert is expected to recommend to his cabinet on Sunday that Palestinians in East Jerusalem, captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, will be able to cast votes in the election at post offices in that part of the city, Army Radio said.

Palestinian officials have said they might cancel the election if Israel restricts voting in East Jerusalem, which Palestinians want as the capital of a future state. Israel says the city is its "eternal, undivided capital".

- REUTERS