.jpeg?width=1200&height=800&crop=1200:800&w=696&resize=696,0&ssl=1 "Pope Francis offers upgrade from medical facility bed after problem referred to as important")
Your assistance aids us to inform the tale
From reproductive legal rights to environment adjustment to Big Tech, The Independent gets on the ground when the tale is creating. Whether it’s checking out the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump special-interest group or creating our most current docudrama, ‘The A Word’, which beams a light on the American ladies defending reproductive legal rights, we understand just how vital it is to analyze out the truths from the messaging.
At such a defining moment in United States background, we require press reporters on the ground. Your contribution permits us to maintain sending out reporters to speak with both sides of the tale.
The Independent is relied on by Americans throughout the whole political range. And unlike several various other high quality information electrical outlets, we select not to secure Americans out of our coverage and evaluation with paywalls. We think high quality journalism need to be offered to everybody, spent for by those that can manage it.
Your assistance makes all the distinction.
The 88-year-old Pontiff was rushed to Rome’s Gemelli hospital on 14 February where he is fighting the disease in both lungs.
He is fighting a “complex” infection and was given oxygen and blood transfusions on Saturday amid fears it could spread to his bloodstream and cause sepsis, Gemelli’s Dr Sergio Alfieri said.
“I am confidently continuing my hospitalisation, carrying on with the necessary treatment,” he said in a pre-written message released by the Vatican on Sunday.
“I ask you to pray for me,” he added. “Thank you for this closeness, and for the prayers of comfort I have received from all over the world.”
The Pope’s statement was likely written day’s ago in preparation for Sunday’s prayers, which he has missed due to the illness.
In a one-sentence update released separately on Sunday, the Vatican said: “The night was tranquil, the Pope rested.”
Francis, who has been the Pope since 2013, is prone to lung infections because he developed pleurisy as a young man and had part of one lung removed.
Dr Alfieri said he was highly vulnerable because of his age and general frailty, and warned sepsis caused by the infection would be “very difficult to overcome”.
“Sepsis, with his respiratory problems and his age, would be really difficult to get out of,” Dr Alfieri said on Friday, adding: “He knows he’s in danger. And he told us to relay that.”
.jpeg)
Doctors first diagnosed the complex viral, bacterial and fungal respiratory tract infection and then the onset of pneumonia in both lungs.
They prescribed “absolute rest” and a combination of cortisone and antibiotics, along with supplemental oxygen when he needs it.
“He is not out of danger,” said his personal physician, Dr Luigi Carbone. “So like all fragile patients I say they are always on the golden scale: In other words, it takes very little to become unbalanced.”
Last week, some of Francis’s cardinals suggested the Pope could step down if he become too unwell to carry on. Francis has said he would consider it, after Pope Benedict XVI “opened the door” to popes retiring
“Everything is possible,” said Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline, the archbishop of Marseille, France. Another cardinal, Gianfranco Ravasi, was asked if Francis might decide to follow in the footsteps of Pope Benedict XVI and step down if he becomes too ill.
“There is no question that if Francis was in a situation where his ability to have direct contact with people as he likes to do was compromised, then I think he might decide to resign,” Mr Ravasi said.
