Secretary of State Hillary Clintonis transported on the New York Presbyterian Hospital complex. (AP)
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was discharged from New York Presbyterian Hospital Wednesday after spending three days undergoing treatment for a potentially life-threatening blood clot.
Earlier in the day Clinton, 65, left the Manhattan hospital, walking out under her own power, for another series of tests but returned to the hospital shortly after. She needed more tests related to her condition, the AP reported, citing unnamed officials.
Deputy Assistant Scretary of State, Philippe Reines, confirmed that Clinton was discharged in a statement released this evening. “Her medical team advised her that she is making good progress on all fronts, and they are confident she will make a full recovery. She’s eager to get back to the office, and we will keep you updated on her schedule as it becomes clearer in the coming days.”
Clinton wore sunglasses and hopped into a black GMC Savana with her husband, former president Bill Clinton.
Her doctors said a blood clot had formed behind her right ear in the space between her brain and skull after she was admitted last Sunday.
The secretary of state, weakened by a stomach virus, fell in her Washington DC, home last month and sustained a concussion.
Doctors had been treating her with blood thinners and said she is expected to make a full recovery.
Her hospitalization didn’t much slow down her hectic work schedule, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said today.
“She’s been quite active on the phone with staff and taking paper, etc.,” Nuland, referring to memos.
Clinton has not been seen publicly since Dec. 7
“In the course of a routine follow-up MRI on Sunday, the scan revealed that a . . . clot [formed] in the vein that is situated in the space between the brain and the skull behind the right ear,” Clinton’s medical team, Dr. Lisa Bardack, of Mount Kisco, and Dr. Gigi El-Bayoumi, of George Washington University, said in a written statement yesterday.
“It did not result in a stroke, or neurological damage. To help dissolve this clot, her medical team began treating the secretary with blood thinners,” the doctors said, noting that she is in “good spirits” and expected to make “a full recovery.”
Top oncologist Dr. Marc Straus told The Post, “Anytime you get a clot near your brain, it’s dangerous.”
The peril lies in the risk of a stroke that could impair the neurological functions of the globe-trotting top diplomat, who is stepping down from office amid speculation that she will run for president in 2016.
The polling firm Gallup yesterday announced that Clinton — for the 11th year in a row, and 17th time overall — had been named the most admired woman in America. She has visited 112 countries as secretary of state, a record for that office.
A clot “can be mild or severe and lead to problems such as stroke if the obstruction to the sinus is large and extensive,” said Dr. Douglas Galasko, neurologist and professor of neuroscience at the University of California in San Diego.
Clinton’s health issues have led to her missing scheduled testimony before Congress about the fatal terror attack on the US mission in Benghazi, Libya.
The doctors, who attribute the clot to her fall, said Clinton “will be released once the medication dose has been established.”
“In all other aspects of her recovery, the secretary is making excellent progress and we are confident she will make a full recovery. She is in good spirits, engaging with her doctors, her family and her staff,” they said.
Straus, the oncologist, said that “a ‘routine’ MRI is not routine unless there is some kind of symptom” Clinton was suffering from.
“It’s a little bit odd that there would be a routine MRI unless she had symptoms,” he said. “I suspect something led them to do the tests that we don’t know about.”
Additional reporting by Susan Edelman, Geoff Earle, Josh Margolin, David K. Li