Clinton to stay in hospital for two days

NEW YORK, United States of America – Top US diplomat Hillary Clinton remained in the hospital Monday, December 31, after news her health had taken a turn for the worse with the discovery of a blood clot just weeks before she is due to step down.

Her top aide Philippe Reines said Sunday the popular US secretary of state would stay at the New York Presbyterian Hospital for some 48 hours after being admitted so she could be monitored while on anti-coagulant medication.

There was no immediate update on Clinton’s health early Monday. With the latest health scare, the globe-trotting diplomat has not been seen in public since returning from a trip to Europe on December 7.

It’s a rare absence for the most popular member of President Barack Obama’s cabinet, who has been a highly-visible and loyal supporter of his foreign policy agenda, travelling almost a million miles during four years in office.

But Clinton, 65, has made it clear she intends to step down in the coming weeks, once Senator John Kerry, tapped by President Barack Obama to replace her, is confirmed by the Senate.

Clinton fell ill with a bad stomach virus on her return from her trip to Prague, Brussels, Dublin and Belfast, which caused her to become dehydrated. She fainted and suffered a concussion.

“In the course of a follow-up exam today, Secretary Clinton’s doctors discovered a blood clot had formed, stemming from the concussion she sustained several weeks ago,” Reines said in a statement Sunday.

“She is being treated with anti-coagulants and is at New York Presbyterian Hospital so that they can monitor the medication over the next 48 hours.”

He refused to specify where the clot is, and on Monday would not give any further updates on her condition.

According to one media report on the website Buzzfeed, she was being treated amid tight security on the hospital’s 9th floor, known as the VIP wing, where her husband, former president Bill Clinton had bypass surgery in 2004.

The Clinton Foundation, set up by her husband, did not reply either to an AFP request for comment on Hillary Clinton’s health.

‘Most significant health scare’ in 1998

In 1998, as first lady, Clinton suffered a blood clot in her leg which she called “the most significant health scare I’ve ever had.”

“That was scary because you have to treat it immediately — you don’t want to take the risk that it will break loose and travel to your brain, or your heart or your lungs,” she told the New York Daily News in October 2007.

Although once seen as a deeply divisive figure, she now has approval ratings in the 60s. And many believe she will run again for the White House in 2016, despite being narrowly defeated by Obama for the Democratic nomination in 2008.

Clinton’s lengthy absence from public life had sparked claims from some of her fiercer critics that she was faking illness to avoid testifying on December 20 before lawmakers investigating a deadly attack on a US mission in Libya.

The September 11 assault on the US consulate in eastern Benghazi, in which the US ambassador and three other American officials were killed, sparked a political firestorm in the United States. A subsequent State Department inquiry found that security at the mission was “grossly inadequate.”

Before the news of her latest health scare broke, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said Sunday it was “absolutely essential that she’d testify.”

He also told Fox News Sunday Republicans would not conduct Kerry’s nomination hearing — which he is expected to sail through — until she has appeared before them.

“I’ve been told by Senator Kerry he wants that approach also. He needs to hear what she says… It makes sense to have her go first.” – Rappler.com