By Canadian Press

Bill Clinton to be released from California hospital

Oct 17, 2021 | 8:44 AM

ORANGE, Calif. (AP) — Bill Clinton spent a fifth night at a Southern California hospital where he is recovering from an infection but is expected to be released Sunday after making great progress, a spokesman said.

Clinton spokesman Angel Ureña said in a statement Saturday that the former president would remain one more night at University of California Irvine Medical Center in Orange, southeast of Los Angeles, to receive IV antibiotics. But he said all health indicators were “trending in the right direction.”

“President Clinton has continued to make excellent progress over the past 24 hours,” Ureña said.

Hillary Clinton has been with her husband at the hospital. She returned with daughter Chelsea around 8 a.m. Saturday in an SUV accompanied by secret service agents.

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

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

Clinton, 75, was admitted on Tuesday with an infection unrelated to COVID-19, Ureña said.

“He is in great spirits and has been spending time with family, catching up with friends, and watching college football,” said Ureña’s Saturday statement.

An aide to the former president said Clinton had a urological infection that spread to his bloodstream, but he is on the mend and never went into septic shock, a potentially life-threatening condition.

The aide, who spoke to reporters at the hospital on the condition his name wasn’t used, said Clinton was in an intensive care section of the hospital but wasn’t receiving ICU care.

In the years since Clinton left the White House in 2001, the former president has faced health scares. In 2004, he underwent quadruple bypass surgery after experiencing prolonged chest pains and shortness of breath. He returned to the hospital for surgery for a partially collapsed lung in 2005, and in 2010 he had a pair of stents implanted in a coronary artery.

He responded by embracing a largely vegan diet that saw him lose weight and report improved health.

Clinton repeatedly returned to the stump, campaigning for Democratic candidates, most notably Hillary Clinton during her failed 2008 bid for the presidential nomination. And in 2016, as Hillary Clinton sought the White House as the Democratic nominee, her husband — by then a grandfather and nearing 70 — returned to the campaign trail.

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Associated Press writer Lou Kesten in Washington contributed to this report.

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This version has been corrected to show that Saturday night was Clinton’s fifth night in hospital.

Haven Daley, The Associated Press