In Sao Paulo, the former President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, was released from the hospital on Sunday, following a three-week stay after a surgery to address a bowel obstruction.
The medical team at DF Star Hospital in Brasilia, the nation’s capital, reported that Bolsonaro was transferred from the intensive care unit on Wednesday and had been in recovery until his discharge on Sunday. His doctors mentioned that he is in a stable condition and has started a liquid diet to aid his recuperation.
Bolsonaro seemed somewhat reserved and serious as he left the hospital premises; however, his demeanor transformed when he was greeted by a supportive crowd waving Brazilian flags and capturing the moment on their mobile phones. Some of his admirers even exclaimed, “Hallelujah!”
“This cap goes to our President,” said Ronaldo de Barretos, a supporter outside the hospital showing off a baseball cap that bore Bolsonaro’s campaign slogan — “God, homeland, family and freedom.”
Bolsonaro was admitted with severe abdominal pain to a hospital in Santa Cruz, a small city in Rio Grande do Norte, on April 11 and transferred to a hospital in the state’s capital, Natal. His family later requested his transfer to Brasilia.
The right-wing leader’s intestinal obstruction is related to a stabbing injury he suffered in September 2018 as he campaigned for president. He has been in and out of hospitals since the attack and underwent multiple surgeries during his presidency, from 2019-2022.
Doctors described this latest surgery last month, his sixth, as the most difficult.
Before undergoing surgery, Bolsonaro had been preparing for a trip across northeast Brazil to promote his Liberal Party’s right-wing agenda, eyeing next year’s presidential election in Brazil, though he himself is barred from running. The region traditionally has been a political bastion of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Bolsonaro is expected to stand trial in the next few months at Brazil’s Supreme Court for allegedly attempting to stage a coup in January 2023, with riots led by his supporters in Brasilia.
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