Former president Lee Teng-hui’s (李登輝) condition has stabilized after he had a minor stroke, but he is to remain hospitalized under observation, Lee’s office said yesterday.
“Lee was sent to the Taipei Veterans General Hospital in the early hours of Friday after experiencing numbness in his right hand,” Lee’s office director Wang Yan-chun (王燕軍) said in a statement issued yesterday afternoon.
Following a series of examinations, Wang said the hospital concluded that Lee’s symptoms were caused by an embolism that occurred in the small peripheral arteries of the left hemisphere of his brain.
Due to the hospital’s attentive care and treatment, Lee’s condition has stabilized and he will remain in the hospital to recuperate, Wang said.
“We appreciate everyone’s concerns, but we have to decline any visitors during Lee’s time in hospital in accordance with doctors’ advice,” Wang said.
Separately yesterday, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said she was aware of Lee’s condition, but has not had the time to visit him in person, adding that DPP Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) has called Lee’s office to pass on her regards.
Lee, 92, served as president from 1988 to 2000.
In 1988, then-vice president Lee became the first Taiwan-born president when then-president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) passed away. Lee became the first popularly elected president of Taiwan in 1996.
In July 2013, Lee underwent vertebral artery stenting surgery after he suffered from a vertebral artery occlusion.
He was diagnosed with colon cancer in November 2011, when he had a tumor estimated at 3.5cm by 2.5cm removed.
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