Brazil's Lula to Skip BRICS Summit After Suffering Head Injury

Radical leftist president of Brazil Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will not travel to Russia to attend this week’s BRICS summit after he suffered a head injury in a “domestic accident” on Saturday.

Members of the China-led BRICS bloc will gather in the Russian city of Kazan this week for their annual meeting, slated to begin on Tuesday. Lula was reportedly scheduled to travel to Russia on Sunday afternoon but canceled his flight after he was admitted to Brasilia’s Sírio-Libanês Hospital on Saturday after he fell in a bathroom, causing him a head injury. 

According to CNN Brasil, the accident occurred in the Alvorada Palace, the official residence of the president of Brazil, after Lula returned from a brief trip to São Paulo, where he took part in a live broadcast alongside Guilherme Boulos, the Brazilian Socialism and Liberty Party’s candidate for mayor of São Paulo.

The Sírio-Libanês hospital reported on Saturday that the Brazilian president suffered a “blunt injury to the occipital region.”

“After an assessment by the medical team, he was advised to avoid long-distance air travel, but was given the okay to carry out his other activities,” the hospital announced. “He remains under the supervision of a medical team, under the care of Prof. Dr. Roberto Kalil Filho and Dr. Ana Helena Germoglio.”

The Brazilian government confirmed on Saturday that, following the medical advice, Lula will not travel to Kazan and will instead participate in the summit via videoconference. According to the statement, Lula will maintain a “normal work schedule this week in Brasilia, at the Planalto Palace.”

The Brazilian delegation will instead be represented by Lula’s Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira. As a result, bilateral meetings that Lula had reportedly scheduled with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin and Chinese dictator Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the BRICS summit were canceled.

According to statements given by Lula’s medical team, he received five stitches for the wound. Lula returned to the hospital for additional tests on Sunday morning and will have to undergo further tests this week.

“The trauma was not minor, it was major in the occipital region. In fact, it was a blunt-cut wound. He had to have stitches and everything. But, more than that, what shows that the trauma was significant was that you had this so-called contrecoup and a small cerebral hemorrhage in the frontotemporal region of the brain,”  Doctor Roberto Kalil, who attended Lula, explained to G1 on Saturday.

Kalil told the Brazilian newspaper O Globo on Monday morning that Lula will spend the day recovering at the Alvorada presidential palace, and pointed out that he cleared Lula to work normally this week, but without physical activities.

Kalil said that tests showed “minimal bruising” on the president’s brain after the fall, and that it is unlikely that the hematoma will evolve.

“What he had was a contusion in the occipital region, behind the head. It was a strong trauma in that region, which led to a so-called brain contusion, a small point of hematoma,” the doctor explained.

Brazil will take over the BRICS rotating chairmanship on January 1, 2025, at the end of Russia’s current term at the head of the bloc.

Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.