Kitty Dukakis to Leave Hospital on Thursday

BOSTON — Kitty Dukakis plans to leave Massachusetts General Hospital on Thursday, less than a week after undergoing neck surgery to eliminate a condition that could have caused paralysis.

The wife of Democratic presidential candidate Michael S. Dukakis said Tuesday in a telephone interview that doctors at the hospital told her she could leave later this week.

“My neck is fine. I’m walking without help. I have just a little pain in my hip,” Mrs. Dukakis said. Her hip pain is the result of Friday’s surgery in which doctors removed two small bone fragments and used them to replace two herniated discs in her neck.

Mrs. Dukakis was alert and sitting up in bed, but sounded slightly hoarse in the interveiw. . She said she longed to be with her husband for Tuesday’s California primary, the last event in the long pre-convention season. “I wish I was somewhere else,” she said shortly after speaking to her husband in the morning. “He sounded a little weary.”