Translated material
Retired from coma
Sharon declared 'permanently incapacitated'
The leaders of Israel's two largest parties, Ehud Olmert of the centrist Kadima and Amir Peretz of the leftist Labor, announced an agreement to form a government coalition. Both appealed to Israeli President Moshe Katsav with a request to urgently assign responsibilities for forming the cabinet to the acting. head of government, Kadima leader 60-year-old Olmert.Ehud Olmert is not only negotiating the formation of a ruling coalition, but also fulfilling his duties as acting Prime Minister. Only on Sunday did the Israeli cabinet officially recognize 78-year-old Ariel Sharon as “permanently incapacitated.” The decision must be made at a government meeting on April 9, that is, after 100 days during which Sharon was unconscious and listed as “temporarily incapacitated.” This is in accordance with Israeli law.
In January 2006, Ariel Sharon was hospitalized at Jerusalem's Hadassah Hospital with a diagnosis of a massive stroke and cerebral hemorrhage. Since then, he has undergone seven operations while in a coma. The next operation was supposed to take place yesterday. But it was postponed indefinitely due to an infection found in Sharon’s respiratory tract.
In 2005, the Israeli parliament legalized euthanasia for terminally ill patients. The law on the right to voluntary death is drawn up so as not to violate religious laws that prohibit taking a person’s life. If the patient’s relatives agree to euthanasia, it will not be the doctor who will disconnect the terminally ill person from the artificial respiration apparatus, but a special mechanical device.
However, there is no talk of euthanasia for Sharon yet. As one of the employees of the Hadassah Hospital explained in an interview with Vremya Novostei, “Ariel Sharon is in a coma, but is breathing on her own. All his organs are working normally. Despite the operations, he manages without artificial respiration devices. The equipment is needed only for artificial nutrition. Omri and Gilad, the sons of Sharon, hope that he will come to his senses.”