Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who has been in a coma for nearly five months, left Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem in an ambulance Sunday en route to a long-term care facility in Tel Aviv, hospital officials said.

Israeli special security forces escort an ambulance out of Hadassah Ein Karem hospital in Jerusalem May 28, 2006. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, comatose since suffering a stroke in January, was moved on Sunday from Hadassah Ein Karem hospital in Jerusalem to a long-term care clinic near Tel Aviv, a hospital spokesman said. [Reuters]

Sharon's transfer to Sheba Medical Center, a facility more suited to providing him with extended care, signaled his medical team did not believe he was likely to emerge any time soon from the coma he fell into after suffering a devastating stroke January 4.

Reporters at the hospital saw an ambulance leave in a motorcade filled with police and security vehicles Sunday morning and Hadassah spokesman Ron Krumer confirmed that Sharon had been moved.

"We are expecting a difficult treatment because in his condition, complications are expected," Dr. Zeev Rotstein, head of Sheba, told reporters. "We will treat him as best we can. It is not a short-term treatment, we are talking about long-term treatment."

Dr. Yuli Krieger, the deputy head of Levinstein House, another long-term care facility, told Israel Radio on Sunday that the 78-year-old former leader's chances of waking up after such a lengthy coma were small.

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