AGENCY
rome, Mar 26
After the discharge of Pope Francis, the head of his medical team on Tuesday recalled how the doctors’ hopes for the pontiff’s survival had waned at one point after he came close to death.
Pope Francis, 88, spent over five weeks at Rome’s Gemelli hospital, where he was treated for severe pneumonia in both lungs. During his stay at the hospital, he suffered four breathing crises. On February 28, the Pope nearly choked on his vomit while he was eating.
Sergio Alfieri, a physician at Rome’s Gemelli hospital, in an interview with Italy’s Corriere della Sera, said that there was a real risk. “We had to choose if we would stop there and let him go, or to go forward and push it with all the drugs and therapies possible, running the highest risk of damaging his other organs.”
After developing double pneumonia, Pope was admitted to Gemelli Hospital on February 14.
Alfieri recalled that it was the Pope’s personal nurse, Massimiliano Strappetti, who had instructed the team to continue the treatment and not to give up on him.
Alfieri said the pontiff at one point was fully aware that he might not make it through the night.
However, after a few weeks, Pope’s health improved with the doctors declaring on March 10 that he was no longer in imminent danger.
Before leaving the hospital on Sunday, Pope offered his blessing to the crowd gathered outside the hospital praying for this speedy recovery.
Pope returned to his home Casa Santa Marta in Vatican City. The pontiff has been advised to rest for nearly two months as his body would take time to fully heal.
