The danger to former prime minister Ariel Sharon's life has escalated, Sheba Medical Center director Professor Ze'ev Rotstein said Monday.
Sharon has been in critical condition for more than a week. While his heartbeat and blood pressure have stabilized, his kidneys and lungs have not returned to function.
"His situation will continue to deteriorate unless there is the kind of upheaval that would be a miracle," Rotstein said
Rotstein declined to speculate on how much longer the former prime minister would live. He said the stabilizing of Sharon's blood pressure was not enough of an improvement to help him and that the functioning of other organs have continued to deteriorate.
Dr Shlomo Noy, who has personally treated Sharon since his debilitating stroke eight years ago, told Channel 2 that the cental goal of his current treatment was to minimize the former prime minister's suffering. Noy said Sharon was in a state of "minimal consciousness."
Noy denied that Sharon has received special treatment that has kept him alive. When asked why Sharon has not been enabled to die sooner and stop suffering, he said "Doctors do not end the lives of their patients.