ROME (AP) – Pope Francis was hospitalized Friday, treated a week-long bronchitis match and undergoing diagnostic tests, and the Vatican was forced to cancel his agenda by at least Monday He said he has confirmed the latest issues regarding the health of the clergy. .
Francis complained of difficulty breathing and was diagnosed with bronchitis on February 6th, but continued to hold daily audiences in a hotel suite in the Vatican. He attended his general audience on Wednesday and hosted an outdoor mass on Sunday. However, he said he was struggling to breathe and handed over his speech over to read aloud by an aide.
On Friday, he looked bloated and pale among the small audience he held before he went to the hospital. The bloating seemed to indicate that the medication he was taking to treat a pulmonary infection was keeping him water.
CNN Vatican correspondent Christopher Lamb saw Francis at the start of the audience with Head Mark Thompson of CNN on Friday, but the Pope is mentally vigilant, but for a long period of time due to difficulty in breathing. He said he has a hard time talking.
Francis, who has removed a portion of one lung as a young man, has long been battling health problems, particularly attacks of acute bronchitis in the winter. He used a wheelchair, walker or cane as he moved around the apartment, collapsed twice recently, causing injury to his arm and jaw.
Francis is currently undergoing treatment at Gemeri Hospital in Rome and was last admitted in June 2023 to undergo surgery to remove scar tissue from the intestine and repair a hernia in the abdominal wall. A few months earlier, he spent three days in the hospital and administered intravenous antibiotics for a respiratory infection.
He later revealed that he was hospitalized that day the day after spinning a high fever and was diagnosed with what he said was “acute and severe pneumonia at the bottom of the lungs.”
The Vatican said Francis was recognized after the audience on Friday. In addition to regular Vatican officials and Thompson, the Pope met with Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico on Friday morning.
“This morning, at the end of the audience, Pope Francis will be admitted to the Agostino Gemeri Polyclinic for several diagnostic tests and will continue to undergo hospital environmental treatment for bronchitis, which is still ongoing,” the Vatican said. The statement was stated earlier.
Although no details were given on Francis’ length of hospital stay, the Vatican later announced that he had cancelled his participation in the Holy Event until Monday.
The Pope had planned a busy weekend agenda. There was an audience with artists in the town of Jubilee on Saturday, a mass for them on Sunday, and a trip to Rome’s famous Cinesitta studio on Monday. The Vatican Cardinal will preside over Mass at Francis’s location, but the Vatican said other events were cancelled “because it is impossible for the Pope to participate.”
The Vatican announcement, which preceded Francis’ hospitalization, contrasted with the 2023 hospitalization for bronchitis, which caused confusion.
Initially, the Vatican said he went for a scheduled test, but the bishop later revealed that he was feeling pain in his chest and was rushed to the hospital where bronchitis was diagnosed. I did. He took intravenous antibiotics and was released on April 1st, excluded when he left saying he was “still alive.”
He later spoke to reporters on April 30, 2023, where he revealed that he had pneumonia.
Francis spent 10 days at the same hospital in July 2021 after intestinal surgery due to intestinal stenosis. He believed that his personal nurse saved his life by insisting that the matter was checked out.
It wasn’t the first time he believed that he saved a nurse a life. Francis recounted his near-death experience with a youthful lung infection in his recent autobiography, “Hope,” where he believed his survival to a nurse, an Italian nun named Sister Cornelia Caraglio. .
“She was an experienced and cultured woman who worked as a teacher in Greece and she quickly realized the seriousness of my situation. She was an expert who drained 1.5 liters of liquid from my lungs. “We called. It began a slow, unstable climb from the brink of life and death,” he recalls.
He recalled that after the doctor prescribed a certain dose of penicillin and streptomycin, she ordered it to double.
“She had intuition and practical experience, and certainly no lack of courage,” he recalled. “My companions came from the seminary to visit me. They also gave me blood for a blood transfusion. Gradually, the fever decided to leave me, and the light returned.”
Francis survived, but in the course of treatment he had to remove the upper lobe of his right lung after developing three cysts.
“Surgery used the techniques of the day. You can imagine the incisions they made and how I suffered,” he said in another autobiography, “Life.”
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