President of Brazil, Lula da Silva, underwent emergency surgery for “intracranial hemorrhage”

The president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, 79, underwent emergency surgery on the night of Monday, December 9, in Sao Paulo due to an “intracranial hemorrhage,” the Syrian-Lebanese Hospital announced on Tuesday.

“The surgery passed without complications. For the moment, the president is fine, under monitoring in an Intensive Care Unit bed,” the hospital added in a statement published in the early hours of the morning on the president’s social networks.

The doctors explained that Lula da Silva felt a headache and performed an MRI in Brasilia that showed a brain hemorrhage, which they attributed to the fall he suffered a month and a half ago. “He was transferred to the Syrian-Lebanese Hospital, Sao Paulo unit, where A craniotomy was performed to drain the hematoma.“, they explained.

On October 19, the president of Brazil fell in the bathroom of his residence, suffering an injury to the back of his head.. He had to receive stitches.

On medical recommendation, as a result of that accident, he canceled his trip to Russia, where he was to participate in the Brics summit, in which he spoke by videoconference. He also did not attend the United Nations climate summit COP29 in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, as planned.

(Also read: Why did Lula Da Silva cancel his visit to COP16? Foreign Minister Murillo responds)

Lula da Silva kept his commitments on his agenda, but he dispatched from the official residence for several days. “I’m fine, I had an accident, but it was my stupidity; It was serious but it did not affect any delicate part“said the president of Brazil, two days after the domestic incident during a phone call with a politician from his Workers’ Party.

“I am taking care of myself because anything in the head is very strong (…) The doctors said that I have to wait at least three or four days to know what damage the blow caused“he added at that time, in the conversation with Luiz Carlos Caetano, who spread the content on his social networks.

A month later, on November 18 and 19, he hosted the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro, where he received dozens of leaders, including the American Joe Biden and the Chinese Xi Jinping.

Lula da Silva has an intense work rhythm in which he chains official events, where it is common for him to offer long and heated speeches.

The president often talks about his good health, even pointing out that he feels better than ever and that he wants to “live to be 120 years old.” He also publishes videos exercising around the Alvorada presidential residence.

In October 2023 he underwent hip surgery to place a complete prosthesis and relieve a pain that had been bothering him for more than a year. He had begun to suffer hip pain in August 2022 but the operation was not performed until nine months into his term.

The former union leader, who lost a little finger while working in a metallurgical factory, suffers from osteoarthritisa wear and tear on the cartilage that lines the joints and can limit movement.

In 2011 he was diagnosed with laryngeal cancer. and achieved complete remission the following year, after undergoing radiotherapy and chemotherapy.