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Updated 7pm
FORMER US PRESIDENT George HW Bush was admitted to an intensive care unit today, and his wife Barbara was hospitalised as a precaution, according to his spokesman.
The former president was admitted to the ICU at a Houston hospital to “address an acute respiratory problem stemming from pneumonia,” family spokesman Jim McGrath said in a statement. McGrath said the former first lady was hospitalised as a precaution after experiencing fatigue and coughing.
George Bush was taken to the hospital over the weekend for shortness of breath. McGrath said earlier today that the 92-year-old Bush was responding well to treatments.
The 41st president was admitted to Houston Methodist Hospital on Saturday, McGrath said in an email to The Associated Press.
“Doctors and everyone are very pleased, and we hope to have him out soon,” McGrath said.
Bush’s chief of staff, Jean Becker, told the Houston Chronicle and KHOU-TV that Bush was expected to go home in a couple of days.
History of illnesses
Bush, who served as US president from 1989 to 1993, has a form of Parkinson’s disease and uses a motorised scooter or a wheelchair for mobility.
He was hospitalised in Maine in 2015 after falling at his summer home and breaking a bone in his neck, and was hospitalised in Houston the previous December for about a week for shortness of breath.
He spent Christmas 2012 in intensive care for a bronchitis-related cough and other issues.
Despite the loss of mobility, Bush celebrated his 90th birthday by making a tandem parachute jump in Kennebunkport, Maine.
Political involvement
Last summer, Bush led a group of 40 wounded warriors on a fishing trip at the helm of his speedboat, three days after his 92nd birthday celebration.
Bush’s office announced earlier this month that he and his wife of more than 70 years, Barbara, would not attend Donald Trump’s inauguration this week due to the former president’s age and health.
George Herbert Walker Bush, born 12 June 1924, in Milton, Massachusetts, also served as a congressman, CIA director and Ronald Reagan’s vice president.
His son, George W Bush, was elected president in 2000 and served two terms. Another son, Jeb – a former Florida governor – made an unsuccessful bid for the GOP nomination in 2016. Only one other US president, John Adams, had a son who also became president.
With reporting from Cianan Brennan
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This interview of course would never have been used to pull a book…
I can’t wait to get hold of this book, I believe that more teens need to be heard, life is not easy for anyone these days and being told “you will never mount to anything!” is the last thing a teen needs to hear… Let them spread their wings and experience the world and express their feelings openly. Sounds like a great read!
Be sure to let us know how that goes Angie.
I will let you know now! I have two children, one is a paramedic in the Irish army who is out in Syria right now and the other one is a hairdresser, I never had one days trouble with either of them, and yes, they do have tattoos and so do I, ohhh and by the way I am a social worker, so my approach with my children paid off for me and my family. I still believe that teens need to be heard, we only ever hear the bad things about them, never the great things they do. It all stems from your approach with your children and the guidance you offer them whether right or wrong.
It’s an astonishingly powerful and beautiful book Angie, and I’d urge everyone, not just young adults to read it. Ces is brave and heartbreakingly vulnerable, and is trying so hard to hold everything together for her mother and herself, at a time when she could be forgiven for falling apart completely. The parts of the book about tattoos, their history and culture, are fascinating too.
Ummmmm, Angie I was being ironic and I was referring to your reading of the book.
”As you grow up, you gain scars. “To a large extent you have no control over what the world does to you, but tattooing is making an active choice to put a scar of your own choosing on your body. There is something really powerful and beautiful in that.”
So essentially tattooing is a form of self harm, self hate.
Amazing really that this mental aberration is not discussed more. We need a public health campaign to raise awareness about the dangers of self harming by the tattoo needle.
Too many kids are suffering in silence.
No it isn’t! So you’ve fallen at the first logic hurdle there, chief!
I have no opinion on this
I’ve never heard anybody referring their tattoos as scars .
Self harming masked as tattoos. This really is a trouble revelation.
Oh right……..
Angle, judging by the number of red thumbs many people out there still don’t understand how deeply words can hurt, especially at a time when a person is trying to find out who they are and what they want from life. Bitter adults may have developed a little more open and supportive if they had learned how to express themselves as teens.Thank goodness for social workers and parents like you.
Thank you very much Sinead
For those who are saying tatoos are a form of self loathing/hate. ..what?! It’s a tattoo with a meaning. Nothing more, nothing less. I don’t know why some people, especially those without one, always feel the need to diagnose and council people on why other people decide to get one. Ridiculous.
Ah Jim, your profile pic is of a pair of jocks with two female arms wrapped around the penis area…Maybe you don’t need to be calling others ridiculous for suggesting that for some, tattoos are more than simply skin pictures. For some, they are a form of empowerment, of bodily autonomy, a way of reclaiming something for their own. For others, it may simply be ink on skin and that’s ok too. The jocks though are a bit worrying ;-)
Alright Laurence Llowellyn Bowen call down now.
I got a tatoo of a big pirate ship on my arm last Friday….
…I woke up on Saturday and it was gone…
…It sank.
have your say