Pope Francis was in critical condition on Saturday after having undergone a long asthmatic respiratory crisis which required high oxygen flow rates, said the Vatican.
Francis, 88, who was hospitalized for a week with a complex pulmonary infection, also received blood transfusions after the tests showed a condition associated with anemia, said the Vatican in a late update. Earlier in the day, the Vatican said that Francis had “went well” overnight.
“The Holy Father continues to be alert and spent the day in an armchair although in more pain than yesterday. For the moment, the prognosis is reserved,” the statement said.
Doctors said on Friday that the Francis, 88, is “not out of danger”, “ And that the main threat confronted with it would be the beginning of sepsis, a serious blood infection that can occur as a complication of pneumonia.
“Septicemia, with its respiratory problems and its age, would be really difficult to withdraw,” said Dr. Sergio Alfieri, head of medicine and surgery at Gemelli in Rome, during a press conference on Friday . “The English say” strike on wood “,” we say “touch the iron”. Everyone touches what they want, “he said by typing the microphone. “But this is the real risk in these cases: that these germs pass to blood circulation.”
In a brief previous update on Saturday, Francis slept well overnight.
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The Vatican continued with his celebrations of the Holy Year without the Pope on Saturday.
Francis, who suffers from a chronic lung disease, was admitted to the Gemelli hospital on February 14 after a A week of bronchitis has worsened.
Doctors first diagnosed the Complex infection of viral, bacterial and fungal ways Then the start of pneumonia in the two lungs. They prescribed “absolute rest” and a combination of cortisone and antibiotics, as well as additional oxygen when it needs it.
Alessandra Tarantino / AP
Carboni, who, with the personal nurse of Francis, Massimiliano Strappetti organized care for him in the Vatican, admitted that he had insisted to stay in the Vatican to work, even after being sick “,” because of the institutional commitments and private. “He was taken care of by a cardiologist and an infectious specialist in addition to his personal medical team before being hospitalized.
The deacons, for their part, gathered at the Vatican for their special jubilee weekend. Francis fell ill at the start of The Holy Year of the VaticanThe celebration of Catholicism formerly quarter of Catholicism. This weekend, Francis was supposed to have celebrated the deacons, a ministry in the church preceding ordination at the priesthood.
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In his place, the organizer of the Holy Year will celebrate the Mass on Sunday, said the Vatican. And for the second consecutive weekend, Francis had to ignore his traditional Sunday noon blessing, which he could have delivered from Gemelli if he was up to the task.
“Listen, even if it is not (physically) here, we know it is here,” said Luis Arnaldo Lopez Quirindongo, a deacon of Ponce, Puerto Rico who was in the Vatican on Saturday for the celebration of the jubilee. “He recovers, but he is in our hearts and accompanies us because our prayers and his his own go together.”
Beyond that, the doctors said that Francis’ recovery would take time and that he will always have to live with his chronic respiratory problems in the Vatican.
While his stay in hospital takes place, some of Francis’ cardinals began to answer the obvious question: if Francis could resign if he becomes irreversibly ill and unable to continue. Francis said he would consider him, after Pope Benedict XVI “opened the door” to the popes taking his retirement, but has not shown any sign of resignation and in fact recently said that the work of the Pope is for life .
