AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) - Gov. Paul LePage was released from the hospital Monday and plans to return to work soon, his spokesman said.
LePage, 69, is back in his official residence, according to spokesman Peter Steele. The Republican governor experienced unspecified discomfort on Saturday while visiting family in New Brunswick and was eventually taken to a Bangor hospital.
“Gov. LePage is back in the Blaine House today, resting and getting ready to return to work in the next couple of days,” Steele said.
LePage was taken by ambulance from a hospital in New Brunswick to Presque Isle in northern Maine, and then to Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, where he arrived late Saturday.
Doctors decided to keep him in Bangor overnight on Sunday, Steele said. He has not provided more details about the nature of the discomfort.
LePage was elected in 2010 and is nearing the end of his second and final term as governor. The state limits governors to two terms.
Steele said LePage and his family appreciate the “concerns and well wishes” they have received over the past day.
LePage’s Chief of Staff Holly Lusk told Republican Senate President Michael Thibodeau’s office Saturday that the governor was hospitalized, according to Thibodeau spokesman Jim Cyr. Thibodeau would serve as acting governor if LePage was incapacitated.
The governor has often kept quiet about his medical issues, and has previously brushed off questions about his health by saying it’s “none of your business.”
LePage had bariatric surgery in Lewiston in September 2016 and lost at least 50 pounds, but waited to reveal the weight-loss operation until a January 2017 interview with Maine talk radio station WLOB-AM. The governor said his doctor had warned him he could develop diabetes.
And this May, LePage disclosed at a public event that he was hit by a car while bicycling in Florida on Nov. 22, 2017. LePage said the accident left him needing surgery, which he said could complicate his hopes of leading a trade mission to Taiwan before leaving office in January.
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