In this Dec. 23, 2013 photo, former first Lady Barbara Bush left, and former President George H. W. Bush look on during a ceremony at President Bush's office in Houston. | AP Photo/Houston Chronicle, James Nielsen
Former President
George H.W. Bush and his wife, former First Lady Barbara Bush, have
both been hospitalized, his spokesman said Wednesday, January 18, 2017.
Jim McGrath told CNN that the 41st
president has been hospitalized at Houston Methodist Hospital since
Saturday, and later said in a statement the cause was “an acute
respiratory problem stemming from pneumonia. Doctors performed a
procedure to protect and clear his airway that required sedation.”
He said Bush is responding well to treatments.
Barbara Bush also was admitted to the
hospital Wednesday morning as a precaution after “experiencing fatigue
and coughing,” McGrath said in the statement.
Bush, who served a single term as
President from 1989 to 1993, was already not expected to attend the
inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump in Washington on Friday due
to health concerns.
Bush sent a letter to the
President-elect on January 10, apologizing for missing the ceremony and
saying that he and Barbara “wish you the very best as you begin this
incredible journey of leading our great country.”
“My doctor says if I sit outside in
January, it likely will put me six feet under. Same for Barbara,” Bush
wrote, in a letter first reported by ABC News. “So I guess we’re stuck
in Texas.”
Several bouts with illness have kept the 92-year-old out of the spotlight in recent years and he has rarely made public remarks.
Previous health concerns
Bush revealed several years ago that he
suffered from a form of Parkinson’s disease that left him unable to
walk. He uses a wheelchair or a scooter to get around and had two other
health scares in 2014 and 2015.
In December 2014, he was hospitalized
after experiencing shortness of breath, and the following July fell at
his home in Kennebunkport, Maine, breaking the C2 vertebrae in his neck.
The injury did not result in any neurological problems, his spokesman said at the time.
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