Former president George H. W. Bush has been hospitalized with bronchitis for the past seven days, a spokesman told the Houston Chronicle on Thursday.
According to chief of staff Jean Becker, Bush has been in and out of Methodist Hospital for the past several weeks, and was admitted the Friday after Thanksgiving over doctors' concerns that the lingering cough could turn into pneumonia. However Becker said that Bush has not developed pneumonia and that he is expected to be released this weekend.
"His big problem is a chronic cough he can't get rid of, so he's back at Methodist," Becker told the Chronicle. "This is not a life-threatening illness."
The illness is the latest in a series of health setbacks for the 88-year-old former president. In June son Jeb Bush told Charlie Rose that his father can no longer walk on his own, relying on a wheelchair or a walker. The same month longtime Bush friend Jerry Weintraub (the producer of the HBO documentary 41 about Bush's life) told Good Morning America that Bush has struggled increasingly with the symptoms of Parkinson's disease in recent years.
