Pope Francis was admitted to the Gemelli Hospital in Rome. He’s going to have an operation on his stomach.
Pope Francis will undergo emergency abdominal surgery on Wednesday afternoon, the Vatican said. He was admitted to Rome’s Gemelli Hospital, where he is expected to remain hospitalized for “a few days”. This carries the risk of an intestinal obstruction.
worsening of symptoms
The operation, which became “necessary” due to the worsening of the symptoms identified by the Pope, according to his medical team, will be performed under general anesthesia.
Pope Francis was in St. Peter’s Square for his weekly general audience on Wednesday morning. “At the end of the general audience, the Holy Father went to the A. Gemelli University Hospital, where in the early afternoon, under general anesthesia, he will undergo a surgical operation with laparotomy and plastic surgery of the abdominal wall with prostheses,” explained Matteo Bruni, director of the Press Service of the Holy See . Laparotomy is an operation that opens the abdomen.
“The operation, organized in recent days by the medical team in support of the Holy Father, became necessary due to a hernia that causes recurrent, painful and worsening subocclusive syndromes,” he added.
The exams take place on Tuesday
The pope had passed several “examinations” at the same hospital in Rome on Tuesday morning, but the nature of which the Vatican had not communicated.
“The hospitalization will last several days to allow normal postoperative development and full functional recovery,” the Holy See is quoted as saying by the Italian newspaper Corriere Dela Serra .
In July 2021 he had already been in this hospital for ten days for a major intestinal operation. He claims to have retained “after-effects” of the anesthesia. At the end of March, François was again treated for three days at the same facility for a respiratory infection.
After his operation on Wednesday, the Pope was again scheduled to stay on the tenth floor of the Gemelli Hospital, in the same room where Pope John Paul II, who underwent multiple surgeries at the facility, had stayed.
increasingly fragile health
Pope Francis said in an interview with Spanish-language television Telemundo two weeks ago that this “pneumonia” had been treated “in a timely manner.” “If we had waited a few more hours it would have been a lot worse,” he said.
Jorge Bergoglio also suffers from chronic knee pain, which forces him to move around in a wheelchair or with a cane. Even the Pope, whose health seems increasingly fragile, had canceled his May 26 appointments due to a feverish condition that did not, however, require hospitalization. He resumed his activities the next day.
The state of health of Jorge Bergoglio, who was elected in 2013, regularly feeds speculation about a possible resignation from his office and his successor. He has repeatedly stated that he would like to resign like his predecessor Benedict XVI, who died in December.
Despite these twists and turns, François continues to travel: he is scheduled to travel to Portugal in early August, to Mongolia in early September and to Marseille on September 23.
Marine Ledoux with agencies