Pope Francis is doing well after undergoing a three-hour operation on Wednesday for an abdominal hernia that threatened to obstruct his intestine. In a statement, the spokesman for the Holy See, Matteo Bruni, reported today that, according to the medical team following him, the Pontiff had a quiet night in which he was able to rest well, is “in good condition, awake and breathing spontaneously.
In the statement, Bruni added that “routine controls are good and throughout the day he will observe the necessary postoperative rest.” The Pontiff is resting in the apartment reserved for the popes at the Policlinico Gemelli hospital in Rome, where he will have to stay for about a week, according to the doctors, although the Vatican has cleared its schedule until June 18 as a precaution.
Pope Francis went to the hospital yesterday, after the general audience on Wednesdays, to undergo an intervention agreed with his personal doctor after manifesting painful and increasingly frequent symptoms in recent months due to an abdominal incisional hernia that was surely the consequence of other operations carried out in the past.
For this reason, and after a CT scan performed on Tuesday, a laparotomy was performed yesterday that “released” these internal scars and prevented him from suffering an obstruction in the future. “He will have to undergo a postoperative period, but once he is discharged he will leave no trace or concern,” his surgeon, Sergio Alfieri, told the press, remarking that the Pontiff does not suffer from other illnesses.
According to the doctors, after this week the 86-year-old Pope was admitted, he will be able to recover his activity normally and they have only recommended that he avoid making great efforts. Yesterday he already showed off his good humor with a joke shortly after waking up from anesthesia.
It is the third time in this pontificate that Francis has entered the Gemelli. It was here that he recovered from colon surgery in 2021, when 33 centimeters of intestine were removed, requiring a longer postoperative period and was discharged after ten days. He, too, spent three nights hospitalized in March for acute pneumonia that threatened to upend the plans of the busy Vatican Easter Week.
The Pope also has trouble walking due to knee pain and must use a cane or a wheelchair to get around, but he shows no sign of slowing down. This summer his schedule is full with two trips, to Lisbon at the beginning of August for the World Youth Days; and to Mongolia, at the beginning of September, which will be the first apostolic visit of a pope to the Asian country.
