After hiccups, Bolsonaro may need intestinal surgery

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RIO DE JANEIRO (Associated Press) – Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who suffered a bout of unyielding hiccups for 10 days, was taken Wednesday to a hospital where he was being evaluated for possible emergency surgery to remove an intestinal obstruction, the office said.

Bolsonaro, 66, was admitted to the Armed Forces Hospital in Brasilia early in the morning and was “fine,” according to an initial statement that said doctors were checking for persistent hiccups.

But hours later, the president’s office said Dr. Antonio Luis Macedo, the surgeon who operated on Bolsonaro after he was stabbed in the abdomen during the 2018 presidential campaign, decided to move him to Sao Paulo, where he will undergo additional tests to assess Bolsonaro’s condition. Need emergency surgery.

Bolsonaro posted on his official Twitter account a photo of him lying on a hospital bed with his eyes closed, several monitoring sensors stuck to his bare torso.

The 2018 stabbing caused intestinal damage and serious internal bleeding and the president has undergone several surgeries since then, some of them unrelated to the attack.

In recent weeks, Bolsonaro has appeared to have difficulty speaking on various occasions, and has said he suffers from frequent bouts of hiccups.

“I apologize to everyone who listens to me, because I have been having hiccups for five days now,” Bolsonaro said in an interview with Radio Guaiba on July 7. He suggested that some medications prescribed after dental surgery could be the cause. “I hiccup 24 hours a day.”

The next day, during his weekly Facebook Live session, Bolsonaro again apologized for not being able to express himself well due to the week-long hiccups.

Bolsonaro is under mounting pressure from a congressional investigation into his administration’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic and alleged corruption in obtaining vaccines against COVID-19, and recent polls have indicated he could lose in the upcoming 2022 election.

On Tuesday evening, in a 20-minute meeting with the president in Brasilia, his supporters repeatedly asked him to take care of his health.

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