Former US president Bill Clinton has been discharged from hospital. Photo: AFP
Former US president Bill Clinton has been discharged from hospital. Photo: AFP
Former US president Bill Clinton has been discharged from hospital. Photo: AFP
Former US president Bill Clinton has been discharged from hospital. Photo: AFP

Bill Clinton leaves hospital after treatment for infection


Soraya Ebrahimi
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Bill Clinton has been discharged from hospital after being treated for an infection.

The former US president, 75, was being treated at the University of California Irvine Medical Centre.

He was admitted on Tuesday with an infection unrelated to Covid-19, officials said.

Clinton spokesman Angel Urena had said Mr Clinton would remain in hospital for one more night to receive further intravenous antibiotics, but all health indicators were “trending in the right direction”.

An aide to the former president said Mr Clinton had a urological infection which had spread to his bloodstream.

He gave a thumbs-up when a reporter asked how he was feeling. He and his wife, Hillary, then sat in a black car and left in a motorcade escorted by the California Highway Patrol.

Mr Clinton’s “fever and white blood cell count are normalised, and he will return home to New York to finish his course of antibiotics,” Dr Alpesh N Amin said in a statement shared on Twitter by a spokesman for the Clintons.

President Joe Biden said on Friday night that he had spoken to Mr Clinton, and the former president “sends his best”.

“He’s doing fine; he really is,” Mr Biden said during remarks at the University of Connecticut.

Mr Clinton has faced health scares since leaving the White House in 2001.

In 2004, he underwent quadruple bypass surgery after experiencing prolonged chest pains and shortness of breath.

He had surgery for a partially collapsed lung in 2005, and in 2010 he had a pair of stents implanted in a coronary artery.

Mr Clinton responded by embracing a largely vegan diet. He said it helped him to lose weight and that his health had improved.

He repeatedly returned to campaign for Democratic candidates, most notably his wife, Hillary, during her failed 2008 bid for the presidential nomination.

And in 2016, as Hillary sought the White House as the Democratic nominee, her husband – by then a grandfather and nearing 70 – returned to the campaign trail.

Prop idols

Girls full-contact rugby may be in its infancy in the Middle East, but there are already a number of role models for players to look up to.

Sophie Shams (Dubai Exiles mini, England sevens international)

An Emirati student who is blazing a trail in rugby. She first learnt the game at Dubai Exiles and captained her JESS Primary school team. After going to study geophysics at university in the UK, she scored a sensational try in a cup final at Twickenham. She has played for England sevens, and is now contracted to top Premiership club Saracens.

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Seren Gough-Walters (Sharjah Wanderers mini, Wales rugby league international)

Few players anywhere will have taken a more circuitous route to playing rugby on Sky Sports. Gough-Walters was born in Al Wasl Hospital in Dubai, raised in Sharjah, did not take up rugby seriously till she was 15, has a master’s in global governance and ethics, and once worked as an immigration officer at the British Embassy in Abu Dhabi. In the summer of 2021 she played for Wales against England in rugby league, in a match that was broadcast live on TV.

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Erin King (Dubai Hurricanes mini, Ireland sevens international)

Aged five, Australia-born King went to Dubai Hurricanes training at The Sevens with her brothers. She immediately struck up a deep affection for rugby. She returned to the city at the end of last year to play at the Dubai Rugby Sevens in the colours of Ireland in the Women’s World Series tournament on Pitch 1.

Updated: October 17, 2021, 8:13 PM