Brazil’s Lula says he is fine after brain hemorrhage surgery

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was released from hospital after undergoing emergency surgery for a brain hemorrhage. the doctors said.

The 79-year-old man appeared with his medical team at a press conference at the Sírio-Libanês hospital in São Paulo.

“This here is not an interview, it is simply a session to give thanks. To thank, first of all, God, who has attended to me in a very generous way,” he said.

Lula was taken to the hospital on Monday after complaining of a severe headache.

Doctors performed a craniotomy on the president, a procedure in which part of the skull bone is surgically removed to treat bleeding and relieve pressure. The bone is then replaced.

The brain hemorrhage, or intracranial hemorrhage, was caused by a blow to the head he suffered when he fell in the bathroom of the presidential residence in October, according to a statement from the hospital.

“Thank you very much for the prayers,” Lula added on Sunday. “And to those who only have hatred, be forgiven. I am here, alive, whole and with more desire to work.”

On Tuesday, doctors said the president was stable after surgery and conscious.

Lula was “lucid” and was talking with the medical staff, they added.

They also insisted that he had not suffered any brain injury and that he had no after-effects from the surgery.

Asked when he would return to the capital, the doctors said that if all went well, they expected Lula to return to Brasilia “next week.”

While Lula was in the hospital, Vice President Geraldo Alckmin assumed some of the president’s commitments.

Doctors said the bleeding was due to the fall Lula had suffered in October.

They explained that it was not unusual for problems from a blow to the head to appear “months later.”

Lula slipped in the bathroom of the Alvorada Palace on October 19 and hit the back of his head. On Sunday, he explained that he was cutting his toenails at the time and was sitting down.

Then they gave him five points. On the advice of his doctors, the president canceled his planned trip to Russia for a summit of the BRICS countries.

He returned to full duty days later.

Lula has been in power since January last year after narrowly defeating incumbent Jair Bolsonaro in a closely contested election.

During the election campaign, he often joked that he had “the energy of a 30-year-old.”

Additional information from Malu Cursino