Hillary Clinton discharged from hospital

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was discharged from a New York City hospital Wednesday evening after three days of treatment for a potentially dangerous blood clot in her head, the State Department said.

“Her medical team advised her that she is making good progress on all fronts, and they are confident she will make a full recovery,” according to a statement released by Clinton aide Philippe Reines. “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.”

Graphic

Location of Hillary Clinton's blood clot.

The brief statement, after a series of medical setbacks that kept the nation’s top diplomat out of public view for more than three weeks, did not say when Clinton would be back to work.

She had appeared briefly outside New York Presbyterian Hospital-Columbia University Medical Center earlier in the day, accompanied by her husband, former president Bill Clinton, and their daughter, Chelsea, but then returned inside. The appearance, photographed by Reuters, was apparently a brief foray related to her subsequent discharge.

In Twitter messages, Chelsea Clinton said her mother was “headed home,” presumably to the family home in Chappaqua, N.Y., and expressed gratitude to the medical staff “for taking great care of my Mom.”

The State Department had released little new information about Clinton’s health after a statement Sunday saying that she had been hospitalized after an MRI scan revealed a clot. It was not until Monday that her doctors issued a statement saying the clot was in a vein behind her right ear.

The doctors, Lisa Bardack of the Mount Kisco Medical Group and Gigi El-Bayoumi of George Washington University, said Clinton had suffered no neurological damage or stroke and was being treated with blood thinners. They did not indicate what caused the clot, which was discovered after she contracted a stomach virus during a trip last month to Europe. On Dec. 15, the State Department said she had also suffered a concussion from a fall after fainting from virus-related dehydration.

Clinton’s lengthy absence clouds the closing days or weeks of a widely respected tenure as secretary of state and has fed speculation about the severity of her illness. The unusual health scare ensures that she would be questioned closely about her fitness should she run for president in 2016.

Victoria Nuland, a spokeswoman for the State Department, said before Clinton’s discharge that the secretary had been making phone calls, including on Wednesday.

“She has been talking to her staff, including today,” Nuland said. “She’s been quite active on the phone.”

Speculation about the severity of Clinton’s condition has grown over her long absence and has migrated beyond conservative media sites and commentators who initially accused her of faking her illness to broader questions about whether she is much sicker than her doctors’ statement suggested.

“I think really we’ve been extremely forthcoming, including from her doctors, on the very specific issues here,” Nuland said. She had earlier called the charge of fakery baseless.