how long is she likely to stay there, and what s the circumstance? reporter: you know, it s going to be at least another four or five days. fred, here s why. she has a drain in her head. in other words, she has hydrocefhalus, some swelling and fluid around her brain. they need to brain that out. if there s too much pressure, that s a problem. as long as she has the drain in there, she has to stay in intensive care. they don t want that drain to stay in too long pause it could become infected so the next couple of days they ll have to make some decisions. can they take that drain out or do they need to do an internal drain, which is they would put a shunt in her head and that fluid, believe it or not, would drain into her abdomen. it would be an internal drain and she might walk around like that the rest of her life or they might take the drain out completely. so once they make that decision, then they can move on and try to get her into rehab. now, i spoke with the head of rehab here
her abdomen and that fluid would drain internally down to her abdomen. sometimes people walk around for their lives with that internal shunt. fascinating stuff. elizabeth cohen in houston, thanks so much. and we will be taking a closer look at what representative giffords might be facing. a brain injury specialist joins us later on this hour to talk about rehabilitation. and this week a federal grand jury indicted suspect jared lee loughner on three charges of attempted murder. more charges are expected. loughner is accused of killing six people and wounding 13 others outside a tucson grocery store two weeks ago today. a congresswoman in north carolina says watching the events surrounding her colleague has made her more aware of her own security situation and she plans to do something about it. listen to this. representative renee elmer says she has a license to carry a gun and she s going to use that
own, but dr. francisco said that she needs considerable support. the speaking part gets a little murky. she has a tracheostomy which is a hole in the windpipe, so there s really no way to get words out. the question is, is she trying to get words out and they re not sure. they re seeing her move her lips. they re not sure if she s trying to get words out or not. and she remains in intensive care primarily why? reporter: primarily because of a drain in her head. she has a drain in her head because she has hydrocephalus. now, over the next couple of days they ll have to make a decision about whether she s ready to have that drain come out, because she can t leave the icu with that drain in. if she s ready, if the swelling has gone down, thecan take the drain out. if not, what they might do is sort of an internal drain that s called a shunt. what they would do is put a drain inside her body from her head believe it or not down to
she had too much water on the brain, and the shunt to drain that fluid became infected. now there s nothing more they can do for her. you see, she got the acute care but it s the same stupid story, six months later, she needed antibiotics that she couldn t get. she will die. the money, one u.s.-based charity has spent nearly all of $7 million it raised from private donors. but if they don t get a larger share of the public donations by september, that s it. this hospital shuts down. within a month and a half you say the money runs out? yes. we were sitting here talking three months ago about this very issue. and said, you know, literally people were giving money, more than a billion dollars, they were giving all over the world. how does a place like this shut the only critical care hospital in the country, how does it shut down if so many money was given? we used the money.
it s so important. but here, it is way too rare. it s about the money. there s never enough. eight organizations tell us they are saving so much of it for the long term. but in the meantime, hospitals are dying, and so are patients. this little girl has been left here to die. she had hydrocephalus, too much water on the brain, and the shunt to drain that fluid became infected and now there s nothing more they can do for her. you see, she got the acute care but it s the same stupid story, six months later, she needed antibiotics that she couldn t get. she will die. the money, one u.s.-based charity medishare has spent nearly all of the $7 million it raised from private donors. but if they don t get a larger share of the public donations by september, that s it. this hospital shuts down. within a month and a half you say the money runs out? yes. reporter: we were sitting here talking the three of us