Pope Undergoes Emergency Surgery to Ease Breathing Problems
Medical doctors have successfully performed an operation on Pope John Paul II to ease his breathing problems, the Vatican said Thursday.
Medical doctors have successfully performed an operation on Pope John Paul II to ease his breathing problems, the Vatican said Thursday. The Pope, who appeared to have recovered from the flu, suffered another breathing crisis Thursday morning and was rushed back to the hospital shortly before 11 a.m.
According to the Vatican, the Pope underwent a successful 30-minute procedure at Rome's Gemelli hospital for a tracheotomy, in which a small opening is cut into the neck and the windpipe so air can flow directly into the lungs.
The report by the news agencies ANSA (Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata) and Apcom that doctors soon would perform a tracheotomy came hours after the pope was taken to the hospital shortly in an ambulance at 10:45 a.m.
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Although medical experts said a tracheotomy would be a simple operation, there were fears that a tracheotomy would have serious consequences for the Pope's abilities to carry out his duties, as it would prevent him from speaking and probably require a long hospital stay.
"He can possibly survive this,” said Dr Barbara Paris, Chair of Geriatrics and Vice Chair of Medicine at Maimonides Medical Center in New York. “But he would certainly have a very prolonged recovery, be very debilitated and very deconditioned."
"With a tracheotomy you can only speak with very great difficulty, if at all," she told Reuters.
According to the Associated Press, medical experts who have not examined the Pope but are familiar with elderly Parkinson's patients say the Pope’s symptoms appeared to be consistent with pneumonia.
However, the Vatican declined to respond to such speculation, saying only that the Pope suffered from a "syndrome of influenza" and that a new medical bulletin would be issued Friday.
In the meantime, Vatican officials say the pope was suffering breathing problems similar to those that sent him to Gemelli on Feb. 1, although Italian news reports say the latest respiratory crisis was more severe than the first.
The 84-year-old pontiff's sudden turn for the worse has alarmed Catholics from Nigeria to the Philippines to St. Peter's Square, raising more doubts about his ability to carry on.
Thursday's hospitalization was the Pope's tenth since his election in 1978, and his second since the beginning of the month.
