Comatose Sharon moved to long-term care clinic

JERUSALEM - Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, comatose since a stroke in January, was moved today from a Jerusalem hospital to a long-term care facility near Tel Aviv, where doctors will continue to try to awaken him.

But experts cautioned that chances for Sharon's recovery remained slim.

"I believe this is the right place for the former prime minister to continue our efforts to wean him off a respirator and to get him out of his coma," Zeev Rotstein, director of the Chaim Sheba Medical Center, told a news conference.

"To achieve these two goals in a reasonable time, it means a couple of months," he said.

Sharon, 78, was admitted to the respiratory wing of the centre's rehabilitation hospital after being taken under heavy guard by ambulance from Jerusalem's Hadassah hospital, where he had been treated since suffering a brain haemorrhage on Jan. 4.

"Each day that passes after this kind of event, with the patient still unconscious, means chances he will regain consciousness get smaller," Dr Yuli Krieger, deputy director of Loewenstein Hospital, another rehabilitation centre near Tel Aviv, told Israel Radio.

Rotstein also said the longer Sharon remained unconscious, the less likely he was to emerge from his coma.

"Nonetheless, we have had cases of people who regained consciousness," he said.

Sharon was categorised as being permanently incapacitated last month. His deputy, Ehud Olmert, took over as interim leader and formally assumed office this month after his Kadima party won the most seats in March elections.

- REUTERS