Pope Francis isn't out of danger but his condition isn't life-threatening, medical team says
World
Alfieri said the pope came down with a seasonal infection that has filled hospitals
ROME (AP) — Pope Francis’ complex respiratory infection isn’t life-threatening but he’s not out of danger, his medical team said Friday, as the 88-year-old pontiff marked his first week in the hospital battling pneumonia in both lungs — along with bacterial, viral and fungal infections on top of his chronic bronchitis.
Francis’ doctors delivered their first in-person update on the pope’s condition, saying he will remain at Rome’s Gemelli hospital at least through next week. The pope is receiving occasional supplements of oxygen when he needs it and is responding to the drug therapy that was strengthened after the multiple infections were diagnosed, they said.
Gemelli hospital Dr. Sergio Alfieri and Francis’ personal physician, Dr. Luigi Carbone, said Francis remains in good spirits and humor. Alfieri said that when he entered Francis’ suite to greet him on Friday morning as “Holy Father,” the pope replied by referring to Alfieri as “Holy Son.”
“To the question ‘is the pope out of danger?’ No, the pope is not out of danger,” Alfieri said. “If you then ask if in this moment the pope is in a life-threatening situation, the answer is also no.”
“Just now he went from his room to the chapel to pray for 20 minutes,” he said. “This is the situation. He is the pope, but he is also a man.”
Francis was admitted to Gemelli hospital on Feb. 14 after a weeklong bout of bronchitis worsened. Doctors first diagnosed the complex respiratory infection and then the onset of pneumonia in both lungs on top of chronic bronchitis. They prescribed “absolute rest.”
Alfieri said the pope came down with a seasonal infection that has filled hospitals, but with a difference.
“Other 88-year-old people generally stay at home and watch TV in a rocking chair. Do you know any other 88-year-olds who govern, let’s say, a state and is also the spiritual father of all Catholics in the world? He does not spare himself, because he is enormously generous, so he got tired,″ Alfieri said.
Francis is a known workaholic and has admitted to being a not-terribly-compliant patient in the past. Alfieri said he had been a “great patient” since he was admitted, but turned the floor over to Carbone to respond to whether he was disciplined when home, at the Santa Marta hotel in the Vatican where he lives.
“He loves the church, and so it’s clear he put the church first while we cared for him at Santa Marta,” Carbone replied.
Carbone said that Francis was responding to the drug therapy that was “strengthened” after the pneumonia was diagnosed earlier this week.
He is also fighting a multipronged infection caused by bacteria, virus and fungus in the respiratory tract. Doctors said there was no evidence the germs had entered his bloodstream, a condition known as sepsis that they said remains the biggest concern.
Sepsis is a complication of an infection that can lead to organ failure and death.
Francis is receiving supplemental oxygen when he needs it through a nasal cannula, a thin flexible tube that delivers oxygen through the nose, but otherwise is attached to no other machinery.
