Pope Francis Discharged from Hospital After Five Weeks
Pope Francis Discharged from Hospital After Five Weeks
Pope Francis on Sunday was discharged from a Rome hospital after five weeks but must continue to rest and undergo his various therapies at home.
Speaking to journalists during a March 22 press conference, Italian doctor Sergio Alfieri, director of the medical surgical department of Rome’s Gemelli Hospital and head of the Pope’s medical team there, said: “The good news is that the Holy Father is being discharged.”
“The Holy Father will return to Santa Marta,” he said, referring to the Pope’s residence in the Vatican’s Saint Marta guesthouse.
However, while well enough to leave the hospital, Francis will be required to observe a period of rest for two months and must continue his drug regimen and his motor and respiratory physiotherapies.
Doctor Luigi Carbone, deputy director of the Health and Hygiene department of Vatican City State and the Pope’s personal doctor, said the Pope will still need to receive oxygen treatment at home, but will be slowly weaned off it as his recovery continues.
Pope Francis overcomes respiratory failure at hospital
Alfieri said that when the Pope was admitted to Gemelli Hospital on February 14, he presented with “acute respiratory failure” due to a polymicrobial respiratory infection, meaning it had various components, including viral and bacterial elements, and “a severe bilateral pneumonia.”
There were two incidents during the Pope’s hospitalization “that were very critical in which the Pope’s life was at risk,” he said, adding that it was thanks to the combined effects of treatment, especially oxygen therapy, that the Pope was able to recover gradually.
Alfieri explained that while the Pope is clinically healed of his pneumonia and his infection is improving, there is still some bacteria in his lungs which may take months to disappear.
He said the Pope’s voice, largely due to consistent high-flow oxygen treatment, is raspy, like when a person has been talking for too long and needs to rest their voice, and it will therefore be some time before the Pope is able to resume giving speeches.
“Pope Francis has continued to work and will do so at Santa Marta,” he said, noting that the Pope has worked throughout his five-week hospitalization, but will be required to abstain from meeting groups and from holding particularly strenuous meetings and activities during his two-month period of rest.
In terms of what will happen with papal liturgies for Holy Week and Easter, and whether Francis will be able to travel to Turkey as planned in May, Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said an evaluation will be made closer to the dates in question, depending on the Pope’s condition and recovery at that time.
Related: Will Pope Francis Resign and Who are His Potential Successors?