Schumacher's wife building $18m home medical suite

The wife of seven-time Formula One champion Michael Schumacher is reported to be preparing a £10 million ($17.9 million) medical facility at their family mansion in anticipation of her husband being forced out of his current hospital intensive care unit place.

Schumacher has spent the past three months in ICU at France's Grenoble University Hospital after his skiing accident and resultant brain injury at a French snow resort. However former F1 medical expert Dr Gary Hartstein has said it's likely Schumacher will have to exit his ICU bed to make way for other patients -- either more seriously injured, or with better chances of recovery.

"It's important to remember that Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds are a very limited resource. Every day intensivists are asked to admit critically ill patients to units whose beds are all filled," Hartstein stated in his blog. "The 'chronically critically ill,' patients like Michael who depend on technology (a ventilator) to stay alive, are a tremendous conundrum for ICU personnel. As time goes on it becomes less and less likely that Michael will emerge to any significant extent."

The UK's Daily Mail has cited contacts close to the Schumacher family as saying that the F1 champion's wife, Corinna, has spent close to $18 million building a home care unit to anticipate her husband's release from hospital.

The Schumacher family currently visits his Grenoble bedside daily, a 120km journey from their home estate on the banks of Lake Geneva in Switzerland. With Schumacher's condition not showing signs of improvement since the accident, and with the process of awakening him from his induced coma still not resulting in independent signs of activity, doctors could decide he would be just as comfortable with highly specialised maintenance care in his home.

This reporter is on Twitter: @KarlaPincott