Pope Francis (pictured), who is being treated in hospital for double pneumonia, is not yet out of danger but is expected to live, one of his doctors said yesterday.Francis is being treated at Rome’s Gemelli hospital, where he was admitted on February 14 after struggling with breathing difficulties for several days.“If the question is whether he is out of danger, the answer is no,” Dr Sergio Alfieri told a press conference. “But if you’re asking whether he is currently in life-threatening danger, the answer is also no.”Double pneumonia is a serious infection that can inflame and scar both lungs, making it difficult to breathe.The Vatican has described the Pope’s infection as “complex” because it is polymicrobial, meaning it is being caused by two or more micro-organisms.His medical team said the pope was able to get out of bed, sit in an armchair to do some work, and even visit the chapel in his self-contained apartment within the hospital.However, they predicted he would remain at the facility “at least” through the coming week.Alfieri, on the medical staff at Gemelli, said that given the Pope is 88, with prior health concerns, he was obviously a fragile patient.He told reporters that the Pope did not have sepsis, a potentially life-threatening condition when the body responds to an infection by harming its own tissue and organs.However, Alfieri said there was still a risk that the infection could spread.“If, unfortunately, one of these germs were to enter the bloodstream, any patient would develop sepsis, and sepsis, combined with his respiratory condition and age, could be very difficult to overcome,” said Alfieri.Yesterday’s press conference was the first with the medical team since the Pope was admitted to hospital last week.No photos of Francis have been released out of respect for the Pontiff’s privacy, Alfieri said.The update came after the Vatican said on Thursday that the Pope’s condition was “slightly improving” for a second day.While the doctors said Francis was able to breathe on his own, they also confirmed for the first time that he was occasionally being provided oxygen via a tube under his nose.Dr Luigi Carbone, who said he was the Pope’s general practitioner at the Vatican, said Francis would stay at the hospital as long as necessary.“As mentioned earlier, he is not out of danger, so like all fragile patients, it is always a delicate balance,” he said.“It would take very little for his condition to become unstable,” said the doctor. “It is difficult to give a precise timeline at this moment.”Francis, who has been Pope since 2013, has suffered bouts of ill health in the past two years.He is particularly prone to lung infections because as a young adult he developed pleurisy and had part of one lung removed.One retired Catholic cardinal suggested on Thursday that Francis’s fragile health could lead the Pope to resign as leader of the 1.4bn-member Catholic Church, as his late predecessor Benedict XVI did.However, Francis has firmly ruled out resigning in the past, calling it in 2024 only a “distant hypothesis”.Francis is known for keeping a brisk schedule, sometimes holding dozens of meetings a day. Vatican officials expect his latest health crisis may lead him to slow down the pace.All the Pope’s public engagements have been cancelled through Sunday and he has no further official events on the Vatican’s published calendar.In Francis’s absence from the Vatican, questions are being raised over the future of a leader with a punishing schedule who has been increasingly plagued by health issues in recent years.“I know that some out there say my time has come, they are always bringing me bad luck!” Francis quipped to Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni when she visited him on Thursday, Italian media reported.The Argentine is no stranger to the plotting and scheming his health woes inevitably prompt among those keen to get their man in as next pope.After undergoing colon surgery in 2021, he joked to a group of Jesuits that “I’m still alive. Even though some wanted me dead”.“They were preparing the conclave,” he said, in reference to the meeting of cardinals to elect a new pope after a death or resignation.Francis has also undergone hernia surgery in the past four years, is overweight and suffers constant hip and knee pain, which force him to use a wheelchair most of the time.
