Doctors battling to save the life of Ariel Sharon were forced today to fend off accusations that delays and medical misjudgment managed to worsen the plight of the Israeli Prime Minister.

Such accusations, plastered all over the local media, are all the more embarrassing in a country that can boast some of the most advanced medical care and hospital facilities in the world.

Several doctors not involved treating Mr Sharon have said that too much time elapsed - more than an hour - between first indications that the 77-year-old was suffering a second stroke at his desert ranch late Wednesday and his admission to hospital in Jerusalem.

Questions were also asked about why Mr Sharon was allowed to spend the night at home on the eve of heart procedure in Jerusalem to repair a small hole in his heart to prevent a repeat of a minor stroke he suffered on December 18.

"I cannot understand how the Prime Minister could have been sent to stay in an isolated farm, more than an hour away from the hospital he was supposed to be treated in, two weeks after a stroke and one night before a heart procedure he was afraid of," one hospital director, who was not named, told the Haaretz newspaper.

It took more than an hour for Mr Sharon to reach Jerusalem’s Hadassah hospital by ambulance and it was during that trip that it became apparent that the Israeli leader had suffered a massive stroke. For stroke victims, every lost minute can be vital.

Mr Sharon could have been transferred more quickly to hospital, either by being driven to the Soraka in Beersheva, much closer to his farm in southern Israel, or by being airlifted to the Hadassah.

Mr Sharon’s doctors have said that the Prime Minister himself opted to be driven to Jerusalem, where he was treated for his minor stroke, that a helicopter was not immediately available and the ambulance able to give top-notch emergency care.

Not content to stay silent on an event commanding blanket news coverage in Israel, doctors have also criticised the treatment itself, in particular injections of blood-thinning agents and the dosage of such medicines. Such medicines are administered to avoid a recurrence of the first stroke, caused by a clot in a blood vessel, but increase the chance of a haemmorhage.

"I also have questions about the dosage of blood-thinning medication he received. My feeling is that Sharon did not get the best medical treatment he deserved," Haaretz quoted one hospital doctor as saying.

Other experts have also drawn attention to psychological conditions in the run-up to his collapse as police re-opened an inquiry into whether Mr Sharon’s family received a three million dollar bribe.

"Ariel Sharon should have been forced to rest after the first stroke and we were wrong to present the entire matter as insignificant," said Yonathan Levy, a medical professor.

After the first stroke, Mr Sharon went back to a highly-pressured schedule and the day before the second stroke he was put under heavy stress by the re-opening of the investigation into illegal fundraising for his election campaigns.

Apparently he did not want to give the impression, less than three months before a general election, that his new Kadima party was being led by a dangerously ill man.

"I’m going there tomorrow for catheterisation anyway, why should I go now?" Mr Sharon was quoted as telling a paramedic on Wednesday night.

While in the ambulance Mr Sharon apparently thought there was no reason to go to hospital and told his personal doctor:"Now that you have seen me, can I go back to the farm," a request vetoed by his doctor.

"The Prime Minister received the most appropriate treatment for the medical condition in which he found himself," said Shlomo Mor-Yosef, the director of the Haddassah hospital. "He was treated by the best experts at Hadassah and we made every effort to consult with experts from other places."

Mr Sharon’s neurosurgeon, Felix Umansky, also refuted the idea that more could have been done. "He arrived conscious. The deterioration took place at the hospital. If he had arrived by helicopter it would not have changed the situation," he was quoted as saying.

Times Recommends

• No apology for Germany’s own Nazi victims
• Intricate web of fear and hope tying down deal
• Victims remembered a year after Mumbai attacks