BRASILIA, Brazil — The medical team treating Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro for a partial intestinal obstruction set no date for his discharge from the hospital, even as the president said he will “soon” resume his activities.
Bolsonaro is making progress and continues receiving the same treatment, his doctors said in a note Friday, adding there’s no set timeline for his release.
Doctors late Friday said CT scans showed the president’s partial intestinal obstruction was improving and that he’d reacted well to a change in his diet though there is no current plan for his discharge.
Earlier, Bolsonaro posted on Twitter a picture of himself walking through a hospital hallway. “I’ll soon be back to work, God willing,” he wrote.
The post echoed comments made by the president during a TV interview late Thursday, when he said he was “doing much better” after being flown to a Sao Paulo hospital Wednesday with a high chance of undergoing surgery.
Bolsonaro has had half a dozen surgeries over the past three years, most of them related to a campaign trail stabbing that nearly took his life one month before the 2018 election. In April, he said he was supposed to have another procedure to treat a hernia developing at the site of the operations.
During the interview with Rede TV on Thursday, Bolsonaro’s surgeon said the president was doing better, though he would have to stick to a liquid diet for now. When asked about a potential discharge date, Bolsonaro laughingly said “maybe tomorrow, if the doctor helps me out.”
Bolsonaro was first hospitalized in Brasilia Wednesday morning with abdominal pain after more than 10 days of hiccups.
