SAO PAULO, Brazil — The medical team treating Jair Bolsonaro put him on a non-solid diet and, if that goes well, the Brazilian president could be discharged from the hospital on Sunday, his doctor Antonio Macedo told journalists in an interview Saturday.
Hospitalized since July 14 because of a partial intestinal obstruction, Bolsonaro is handling government dispatches remotely and actively using social media to update Brazilians on his recovery.
There is no specific time yet for discharge, Macedo told Brazilian newspapers, adding Bolsonaro’s digestive system is already working and his condition is “really good.”
Earlier Saturday, Bolsonaro posted on his social media a video of himself walking in the halls of Sao Paulo’s Vila Nova Star hospital. He was transferred there Wednesday evening after seeking medical treatment in Brasilia with abdominal pain following 10 days of hiccups.
The 66-year-old president joined an online ceremony Saturday to inaugurate a new branch of state-run lender Caixa Economica Federal in Brazil’s Northeastern state of Ceara, during which he once again blamed a campaign trail stabbing for his current condition.
“I’m doing OK, thank God,” said Bolsonaro, who has undergone a series of surgeries since the assault. “This issue I’ve had earlier this week is due to the stabbing back in 2018.”
In another Saturday post, he shared a video showing his political rival, the former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, praising Cuba’s Fidel Castro as the island nation’s communist regime faces the largest street protests in decades.
The video, which was tagged to businessman Luciano Hang, one of Bolsonaro’s most vocal supporters, displayed images of Lula calling Fidel Castro a “myth” alongside headlines criticizing the communist regime on the island.
Bolsonaro urged people to “not give up on what is right” as the current generation is already paying a high price. “Imagine the ones to come,” he wrote.
Besides the president, Regional Development Minister Rogerio Marinho was also hospitalized late on Friday after falling ill during a family vacation. He underwent emergency surgery to fix an arterial obstruction and had already been discharged, Marinho said on his Twitter account.
