On December
18, Ariel Sharon and Shimon Peres raised wineglasses together in the
Knesset. Half an hour later, Ariel Sharon suffered a stroke. He was
brought into hospital by Yoram Rubin, the bodyguard who murdered Yitzhak
Rabin. On Jan. 4, Ariel Sharon returned to hospital with a massive
cerebral hemorrhage and within a few hours I published my suspicions
that Ariel Sharon was the victim of a second assassination attempt
by the same Shimon Peres/Rubin team which had finished off Yitzhak
Rabin.
Naturally my critics howled that I saw conspiracies everywhere. To
their dismay, I'm certain, within a day, so did the rest of the Israeli
media. How well they have been trained since the Rabin murder!
I'll let the following typical reports summarize the suspicions of
foul play, then we'll return to more political mayhem in Israel:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/667192.html
Last update - 11:42 06/01/2006
Hospital director: Letting Ariel Sharon go to Negev farm was negligent
By Ran Reznick, Amos Harel and Aluf Benn, Haaretz Correspondents
Several senior doctors raised a host of questions Thursday about
the standard of treatment Ariel Sharon has received over the last
two weeks, with the director of a large hospital telling Haaretz that
according to the media reports on Ariel Sharon's medical treatment, he fears
"there was indescribable negligence."
The questions cover the period from Ariel Sharon's first
stroke two weeks ago to his arrival Wednesday night at Jerusalem's
Hadassah University Hospital, Ein Karem, where he is being treated
for a severe stroke and cerebral hemorrhage. They pertain to the supervision
over Ariel Sharon's physical state, following the blood-thinning medicine
he received after his first hospitalization.
Such supervision is essential, as these medicines could cause a cerebral
hemorrhage, like the one Ariel Sharon suffered. Questions were also raised
about the dosage he received.
"Yitzhak Rabin was not wearing a bulletproof vest that could
have protected him from the murderers' bullets, and now, 10 years
later, Ariel Sharon was not given the required medical treatment that could
have saved him," the hospital director said. "Israel has
not learned the lesson from Rabin's murder, and thus lost two prime
ministers because of inadequate protection - one from weapons, the
other from illness. I cannot understand how the prime minister could
have been sent to stay in an isolated farm, more than an hour away
from the hospital he was supposed to be treated in, two weeks after
a stroke and one night before a heart procedure he was afraid of."
Ariel Sharon was slated to undergo a cardiac catheterization procedure Thursday
to fix a small hole between the chambers of his heart that doctors
said contributed to his initial stroke.
"A night before the catheterization he should have been hospitalized
in Hadassah or at least made to stay in Jerusalem," the director
said. "I also have questions about the dosage of blood-thinning
medication he received. My feeling is that Ariel Sharon did not get the
best medical treatment he deserved."
A senior doctor told Haaretz that "Ariel Sharon's medical condition
was iatrogenic - that is, induced by treatment of physicians, as it
was likely that the blood-thinning medicine Ariel Sharon was receiving had
caused the severe brain bleeding."
According to the doctor, "Clearly, Ariel Sharon needed complete rest
at least until the catheterization, as anyone who had undergone a
stroke would. But it is hard to say that Ariel Sharon's refusal to rest
caused the hemorrhaging."
Another senior doctor said he suspected "Ariel Sharon's treatment was
partly faulty because he fell victim to the political-media spin intended
to show the public he was back to work as usual."
"He paid a high price for this spin," the doctor said. "My
concern is that non-professional considerations dictated the chain
of medical events. The doctors took a dangerous but calculated risk
when they gave him blood-thinning drugs at home instead of in the
hospital under full supervision. But he should have been kept under
constant supervision and certainly not allowed to return to work as
usual."
Several questions have been asked this week regarding the standard
of treatment Ariel Sharon has received: How much time elapsed from the moment
Ariel Sharon told his son, Gilad, he wasn't feeling well to the arrival
of his personal doctor at Sycamore Ranch? Why wasn't there a doctor
at his side since the first stroke, especially on the eve of the catheterization?
Why wasn't Ariel Sharon taken to the hospital by helicopter? Why was he
taken to the distant hospital in Jerusalem, rather than to Be'er Sheva's
Soroka Medical Center? To what extent did the treatment Ariel Sharon received
after the first episode account for the hemorrhaging?
Ariel Sharon's aides said nobody thought he was in danger when he left his
office for Sycamore Ranch on Wednesday afternoon. The paramedic of
the Shin Bet security service's VIP protection unit, who was always
at his side, accompanied him.
According to the initial plan, a doctor was to be with him after the
catheterization, when he returned to convalesce at the ranch.
Since his release from Hadassah on December 20, after the first incident,
Ariel Sharon was frequently examined by his personal physician, Dr. Shlomo
Segev, who also administered his blood tests. Ariel Sharon did not complain
of pain or feeling bad.
The chief cardiologist at Hadassah, Professor Haim Lotan, who was
supposed to perform the catheterization, visited his office on Tuesday.
Ariel Sharon received two Claxon shots a day intended to thin his blood
and prevent blood clots and a recurrent stroke. He received the last
shot on Wednesday morning, so that its effect would wear off before
the heart procedure.
When Ariel Sharon felt unwell on Wednesday, his personal physician was called
in from the center of the country. According to one version, he arrived
at the ranch just as Ariel Sharon was being put into an ambulance, and joined
him on the trip. According to another version, he met the convoy at
the Masmia junction on the way to Jerusalem.
Ariel Sharon's aides, who pieced the event together, said Ariel Sharon did not
want to be taken to hospital. He said he was due at Hadassah for the
procedure the next morning anyway. Apparently, his son, Gilad, and
the Shin Bet paramedic convinced him to go anyway. Even when in the
ambulance, he told Segev he wanted to turn around and go the following
morning.
Segev, who refused to comment Thursday, was under the impression that
Ariel Sharon had suffered another stroke, which was worse than the first
one. He decided to proceed to the hospital in the ambulance rather
than scramble a helicopter. He feared that the movement of the helicopter
would harm Ariel Sharon more than a few more minutes in the car.
Apparently, Segev was the one who decided to take Ariel Sharon to Hadassah
rather than to the closer Soroka center. The trip to the hospital
took 55 minutes, during which Ariel Sharon's condition deteriorated.
Doctors asked why Ariel Sharon wasn't required to stay in his Jerusalem
residence instead of the ranch, at least while he was being treated
with Claxon and until the procedure to mend the hole in his heart
had been performed. Why wasn't a senior doctor at his side at all
times, one who could have administered immediate treatment when the
deterioration began?
Some of the questions suggest that Ariel Sharon and his aides' desire to
show that the prime minister had returned swiftly to his daily routine
resulted in inadequate treatment and supervision.
The senior doctors asked why Ariel Sharon's physicians had not insisted
that he take a significant rest after the first stroke, as they would
have done with any other patient. They asked to what extent political
and media considerations were involved. They also asked why the catheterization
was not performed earlier.
Other questions refer to why it took about two hours from the time
Ariel Sharon felt unwell at his ranch to the time he arrived at the hospital
emergency room at about 11 P.M., and why he wasn't taken to Soroka
for preliminary treatment at least.
Ariel Sharon's Stroke
Raises Medical Questions
By AMY TEIBEL
The Associated Press
Thursday, January 5, 2006; 4:33 PM
JERUSALEM
-- Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffered a massive stroke in the back
of an ambulance while on an hour long trip to a Jerusalem hospital,
raising a host of questions about his treatment.
Why wasn't
he flown to the hospital or at least driven to one closer to his home?
Did doctors take an unnecessary risk by treating him with blood thinners
after he had a mild stroke two weeks ago? Did they wait too long to
schedule a heart procedure designed to prevent another stroke?
And perhaps
most important: Could political pressures have colored his treatment?
The stroke followed a mild stroke Ariel Sharon suffered Dec. 18 that was
caused by a small blood clot. Doctors at Hadassah released him less
than 48 hours after that stroke and gave the 77-year-old leader blood
thinners to prevent future ones. His neurologist, Dr. Tamir Ben-Hur,
said "chances are excellent that he won't have another one."
On Dec.
26, doctors said they found a small hole in Ariel Sharon's heart they said
had led to his mild stroke. They planned to seal the hole in a procedure
scheduled for Thursday to prevent another stroke.
But on
Wednesday night, Ariel Sharon complained of feeling ill and his sons and
a paramedic loaded him into an ambulance that had been stationed at
his ranch in the Negev Desert since the stroke. The closer Soroka
Medical Center in Bersheeba was told to prepare for his arrival, but
he was taken instead on the hourlong trip to Hadassah.
Ariel Sharon was conscious for most of the drive, and didn't deteriorate
badly until about 15 minutes before reaching the hospital.
Some Israelis questioned
whether the outcome could have been different if had he been airlifted.
"If
there is an ambulance that is available at the door to the house that
can leave immediately and a helicopter that still takes time to arrive,
it is preferable to get moving," Dr. Zeev Feldman, a neurosurgeon
at Tel Hashomer Hospital outside Tel Aviv, told Channel 2 TV.
Surgery
to stop the bleeding apparently had been complicated by blood thinners
Ariel Sharon took following his initial stroke, and the medication may also
have contributed to the severity of Wednesday's stroke.
There you have it in a nutshell. The prime minister
of a modern nation suffers a stroke and is released from hospital
in two days, unsupervised by a doctor. Though he has a residence in
Jerusalem, he chooses to reside on his ranch 100 miles away. When
he feels ill 18 days later, he is trundled off to Jerusalem in a car,
passing by a major hospital ten minutes away, so he may better enjoy
a 75 minute ride to the hospital which misprescribed his original
treatment. Of course, he should have been flown to hospital by helicopter,
but here is the excuse why he wasn't.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3195358,00.html
Why wasn't Ariel Sharon
airlifted to hospital?
According
to initial explanations, ambulance left on way to Jerusalem hospital
before proposal to use chopper was raised; doctor concerned carrying
Ariel Sharon to helicopter would have worsened his condition due to the
change in air pressure.
Just last night I shared dinner with a group of visitors from the
US. One of the party was a Colorado doctor who served in Viet Nam.
He explained why the explanation was nonsense. "You fly at 300
feet following the landscape and there is no air pressure difference.
When you medivac someone in Ariel Sharon's condition, you don't fly at 12,000
feet." That simple.
Now, let us examine Ariel Sharon's last moments before being rushed to the
hospital. He had two appointments at his ranch. The first was with
Otniel Shendler, who is not part of any murder plot but provides an
interesting digression. Shendler was managing director of the Yesha
Council during the Gush Katif expulsion. Ariel Sharon had invited him to
join his Kadima party. Shendler gave Ariel Sharon a gift. It was a book
he co-authored with Yair Hirshfeld, one of the two negotiators of
the Oslo Accord. Just another piece of evidence that the Yesha Council
worked hand in hand with the government to sell out Gush Katif.
The next and final meeting was with Ehud Olmert. The following day,
Ariel Sharon was supposed to have undergone minor heart surgery to repair
a small hole in his heart. The operation was to last 3 hours and during
that time, Ariel Sharon signed the papers appointing Ehud Olmert temporary prime
minister.
According to the newspaper Hashofar from the same week, Ariel Sharon was
utterly opposed to Ehud Olmert as his successor and had, instead, chosen
Moshe Katsav. And that may go a long way to explaining why Ehud Olmert
was so concerned about receiving the temporary transfer of powers
authorization from Ariel Sharon himself in the Negev Desert, when the very
same papers could have been faxed to him in his Jerusalem office.
Yediot Ahronot on Jan. 5, published a revealing account of the meeting.
Ehud Olmert then entered the room. "Arik," he said, "There
are a few matters I want to handle while I'm serving as temporary
prime minister."
Ariel Sharon
retorted, "I thought so. I'll transfer my authority to you but
I remind you it's only for three hours. Do you understand? You willdeal
with no one and take care of nothing without me."
Within
minutes of the stern warning to Ehud Olmert, Ariel Sharon was stricken and taken
by the picturesque route to Jerusalem. And who was there to make sure
things went as planned?:
Embedded
in the lead story on www.israelnn.com today:
"No politicians have been permitted to visit Ariel Sharon, but Shimon Peres was
to have been the first one, had Ariel Sharon not been taken to the operating
room."
By January
11, Ehud Olmert had announced his intention of inviting Shimon Peres to
sit in his new government
cabinet.
It may be instructive to look at the three days leading to Ariel Sharon's
demise. As my readers know, Ariel Sharon was a longtime agent of Henry Kissinger
and the Council On Foreign Relations. Two days before his fall, Ariel Sharon
agreed to put their plans into final action:
Ariel Sharon's New Plan:
Uproot Towns in Judea and Samaria in Exchange for American Compensation
12:06 Jan 02, '06 / 2 Tevet 5766
and in Hebrew:
http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART1/027/938.html
(IsraelNN.com)
The Israeli newspaper Ma?ariv reports that Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon is planning on replacing the U.S.. backed road map peace proposal
with a new plan that would uproot Jewish communities in Judea and
Samaria in exchange for American compensation.
Ariel Sharon
reportedly would implement his new plan despite any deterioration
in Israel?s security situation due to an upsurge of terrorism from
the Palestinian Authority. Details of Ariel Sharon"s new plan were
reported by sources close to former U.S. Secretary of State Henry
Kissinger.
The day before his demise,
Ariel Sharon put the plan into action:
"Security
Forces Handing Out Expulsion Order to Jews Living in Reclaimed Hevron
Marketplace in 15 Minutes."
Dateline= 08:35 Jan 03, '06.
www.israelnn.com/news.php3?id=95922.
On the day his brain was
drowning in blood, Ariel Sharon was implicated in a scandal that seemed
Guaranteed Issue Health Insurance to fell him politically. Police had found evidence in the
Schlaff family computers that Ariel Sharon had accepted a $3 million bribe
from casinos owner Martin Schlaff via his frontman, Cyril Kern. We
may safely assume that in return for the bribe, Ariel Sharon promised Schlaff
a new money-laundering casino somewhere in his realm, but widely reported
to be in the former Gush Katif. After he was struck down, the police
began to reconsider their intentions:
Police
said Sunday they would reevaluate continuing their investigation into
bribery allegations against Prime Minister Ariel Sharon due to his
health condition. Police said that it was still too early to tell
if the case would be closed but that the possibility would be considered.
The investigation - dubbed the Cyril Kern loan affair - focuses on
the nature of several money transfers made to the Ariel Sharon family by
South African businessman Cyril Kern.
Police suspect that Kern served as a front for Martin Schlaff - an
Austrian-Jewish businessman - and that the money was meant to serve
as a bribe to the prime minister.
Apparently,
a possible police reevaluation wasn't comforting enough for Cyril
Kern, who on Jan. 8 flew all the way from South Africa to be at Ariel Sharon's
side. From Maariv, Jan. 10:
Ariel Sharon's friend Cyril Kern arrived in the country to be by him. Kern
arrived at Hadassah hospital two days ago and went to the seventh
floor where the Prime Minister is interned. Ariel Sharon family sources
explained that as soon as he heard Ariel Sharon was fighting for his life,
he felt he had to be by his side... According to a State Comptroller's
report, Ariel Sharon's son Gilad accepted an illegal 4.7 million shekel
loan from Kern...Kern was not allowed to see the prime minister in
his room but did meet with his sons for an update of the situation.
Would it be too forward
to suggest that one of the messages Kern delivered to the Ariel Sharon boys
was, "You keep your mouths shut, or else."
end
**
An observation
I made on a number of radio interviews is how the world media is misreporting
the so-called outpouring of grief for Ariel Sharon. On Jan. 8, Israel TV
News reported that "dozens of Israelis had gathered at the Western
Wall to say prayers for the prime minister." A whole, "dozens."
Another media report also noted the striking lack of public grief
for Ariel Sharon:
It
is noteworthy that virtually every interview on public television
and radio begins with the interviewee saying that he is "praying
for Ariel Sharon's full recovery." Most interviewees and their interviewers
even add that they "join the entire country" in praying
for the Prime Minister. As news of Ariel Sharon's operation became known,
Army Radio reported that "spontaneous prayer quorums" had
sprouted up at the Western Wall to pray for Ariel Sharon. This appeared
to be a case of wishful thinking, however, as web-photos of the holy
site, backed up by eyewitness testimony, showed very sparse attendance
at the Wall - except for several press photographers making a rare
visit and photographing the worshipers from various angles.
When I
report on the wave of political assassinations in Israel, there is
always initial widespread skepticism. But it's just a matter of time
before the facts come out verifying my assertions. Recall my disbelief
that Raful Eitan was swallowed by a giant wave. Now look at the flimsy
coverup which took place last week. I'll let my correspondent speak
for me. It seems Raful just never took a hint, as his wife explains
in a Haaretz interview:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArtVty.jhtml?sw=raful&itemNo=666919
"And he died at the age of 75, one misty morning in August, suddenly,
for no reason.
"That
is perhaps the death that he could have wished for. This may be a
secret, but Raful simply never knew how to swim. And he was almost
deaf, but was vehemently opposed to wearing a hearing aide. It was
simply contrary to his facade as a man. And what is a man? It's someone
who overcomes life. And Raful did not hear the wave that sneaked up
behind him, and he was dragged into a stormy sea. Did you expect Raful
to wear a hearing aid? {shlomo comment: a widow's delusional grief}
"You
know what? There were portents of his death.
He had already lost three cars during
the last year and a half of his life, during which he was responsible
for the building of the port. He drove with them in the mornings onto
the pier in Ashdod, and they were swept away and hit by the waves.
I'm sure that he died in the place where,
had he been asked, he would have wanted.."
Barry? three cars
taken by waves in 1 1/2 years? doesn't this imply several things:
(1) why would he park in a place where he already lost 3 cars (if
it was the same place), especially considering the stormy day?
(2) what kind of "parking place" could have this type of
wave action? I lived near the shore and I never recall any car being
"swept by waves" and certainly not 3 in a year and half.
(3) this story is so convenient....needed hearing aid to hear wave
"sneaking up on him" and could not swim...
(4) another part of article
(http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/666919.html) his widow explains
how upset he was about Ariel Sharon and the corruption overtaking
this country...
