Sharon Moved To Long-Term Facility

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who has been in a coma for nearly five months, was transferred Sunday in an ambulance escorted by a security convoy from Jerusalem's Hadassah Hospital to a long-term care facility in Tel Aviv, hospital officials said.

Sharon's transfer to Sheba Medical Center, a facility more suited to providing him with extended care, signaled his medical team did not believe he was likely to emerge any time soon from the coma he fell into after suffering a devastating stroke January 4th.

Dr. Zeev Rotstein, head of Sheba, told reporters Sunday that Sharon arrived late Sunday morning.

"We are expecting a difficult treatment because in his condition, complications are expected," Rotstein said. "We will treat him as best we can. It is not a short-term treatment, we are talking about long-term treatment."

Dr. Yuli Krieger, the deputy head of Levinstein House, another long-term care facility, told Israel Radio on Sunday that the 78-year-old former leader's chances of waking up after such a lengthy coma were small.

"Every day that passes after this kind of event with the patient still unconscious the chances that he will gain consciousness get smaller," said Krieger, who was not directly involved in Sharon's care.

About 20 security officials, including police officers and private security guards, fanned out in the corridors of Sheba before Sharon's arrival. Hospital officials also constructed a wooden screen outside an elevator where Sharon was to be brought into his ward to shield him from the view of journalists and photographers.

Rotstein said the Shin Bet security service were securing the hospital and that the long-term security arrangements for Sharon would not interfere with other patients there.

Sharon was Israel's most popular politician, and the country was stunned to see the man, who for decades personified Israel's military might, felled by illness.

His stroke came after Sharon saw through his contentious plan to withdrawal Israel from the Gaza Strip after 38 years, and just two months after Sharon shook up the Israeli political map by bolting his hardline Likud Party to form the centrist Kadima faction.

With Sharon as its leader, Kadima was expected to easily win Israeli elections. After the stroke, Sharon's successor as party leader, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, led Kadima to a slim victory in the March 28 vote.

Olmert has painted his plan to withdraw Israel from much of the West Bank, solidify its hold on major settlement blocs and unilaterally draw the country's borders in the coming years as a continuation of Sharon's "disengagement plan," which began with the Gaza withdrawal.

Sharon had a small stroke in December and was put on blood thinners before he suffered a severe brain hemorrhage in January. The Israeli leader underwent several, extensive brain surgeries to stop the bleeding, and many independent experts doubted that he would ever recover.

The last surgery on Sharon, in April, was to reattach a part of his skull, removed during the emergency surgery to reduce pressure on his brain. The reattachment was described as a necessary step before transferring Sharon to a long-term care facility.

Sheba had a wider range of rehabilitation treatments than Hadassah, including physiotherapy and hydrotherapy, Rotstein said.

"The experts are saying that his chances of waking up are not good. But we prefer to hope for the best, even though they say the likelihood is low, we will do the maximum to revive him," he told reporters.

After several months of treatment, the doctors at Sheba plan to send Sharon home, whether his condition improves or not, he said.

"If there is a good improvement and he will be able to breathe on his own, we will be very happy to get rid of the former prime minister. And if there is no improvement at all, he will be sent home," Rotstein said.

Dr. Moti Ravid, an outside medical expert, told Israel's Army Radio that there was no hope of Sharon awakening from his coma.

"It's not a nice thing to say, because people say that as long as a person is alive there is still hope, but there is no chance that he will wake up," he said. "He still doesn't breathe by himself. That means the central respiratory center in his brain is in an irreversible condition so all the talk about rehabilitation are empty words."