ITALY: Pope John Paul II was last night in a stable condition in Rome's Gemelli hospital, following his emergency hospitalisation on Tuesday night due to acute breathing difficulties.
Commenting on the 84-year-old pontiff's health, senior Papal spokesman, Dr Joaquin Navarro-Valls, yesterday said that the Pope had received "respiratory assistance therapy" that had "stabilised his clinical framework". The Pope's "cardio-respiratory and metabolic parameters" were "within normal levels", added the spokesman, who went on to confirm that the Pope will remain in hospital "for a few more days".
The latest dramatic episode in the Pope's troubled medical history had begun shortly after supper in the pontifical apartment in the Vatican on Tuesday night when he suffered an acute attack of "laryngospasm". In layman's language, this means a blockage of air to the lungs, prompting the frightening sensation of suffocation for periods of up to a minute.
A sufferer from Parkinson's Disease, the Pope has for some while now had difficulty with his breathing and has often struggled when reading speeches on public ceremonial occasions. That difficulty was exacerbated by a bout of influenza contracted over the weekend, with the fever and catarrh provoking a crisis in his breathing.
For what Dr Navarro-Valls subsequently called "precautionary reasons", the Pope was rushed by ambulance to the Gemelli hospital at around 11 p.m. on Tuesday night. The Pope was attended by the Gemelli's emergency department and by his own personal physician, Dr Renato Buzzonetti, until 1.30 a.m. yesterday before the lights went out in his 10th floor private apartment.
Speaking to reporters early yesterday morning, Dr Navarro-Valls said there was no reason for alarm over the Pope's condition. At no point had the Pope been unconscious nor had his condition necessitated him being put into intensive care.
Likewise, he said, the Pope had not been subjected to a trachotomy to unblock the upper air passage, adding: "The situation is calm. There's no reason to be alarmed. If things were really serious, I'd hardly be returning to my office in the Vatican, would I?"
Dr Navarro-Valls also said the Pope had slept "for several hours during the night", had eaten a light breakfast yesterday morn- ing and that his flu fever had resided. Furthermore, along with his private secretary, Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, the Pope later concelebrated Mass from his hospital bed.
For more than a decade now, the Pope's health has been a major focus of world media attention. Since surviving an assassination attempt by Turkish gunman Ali Agca in May 1981 in St Peter's Square, the Pope has broken his hip, dislocated his shoulder, had surgery for colon cancer and for acute appendicitis.
Furthermore, he suffers from chronic arthritis in his knees as well as from Parkinson's Disease. For almost two years now, the once athletic and fit Pope has been de facto wheelchair-bound.
A huge media posse plus well-wishers gathered outside the Gemelli hospital from the early hours of yesterday morning whilst prayers for the Pope's health were offered up in Catholic churches all round the world yesterday, from his native Poland to Manhattan.
The Pope, who is now in the 27th year of his pontificate, is the third longest serving Pontiff in the line of 265, after St Peter himself (0-64,67) and Pius IX (June 1846-February 1878). John Paul II will be 85 on May 18th next.