Pope has coffee, leans after delay in recovery – a bronchial spasm that requires additional ventilation

ROME – Pope Francis took coffee and read newspapers on Saturday after a Alarming adjustment In his recovery of two weeks after double pneumonia: the doctors had to put it on non-invasive mechanical ventilation following a cough match in which they inhaled vomiting that had to then extracted.

Doctors said that it would take a day or two to evaluate how and if the Episode on Friday after -amia had affected Francis’s general clinical condition. His prognosis remained guarded, which means he was not in danger.

In his update in the morning, on Saturday, the Vatican said that the 88 -year -old Pope had no respiratory crisis more than night: “The night passed, the Pope rests.” He took coffee in the morning for breakfast, suggesting that it does not depend on a ventilation mask to breathe and still eat alone.

In the update at the end of Friday, the Vatican said that Francis suffered an “isolated bronchial crisis”, a cough match in which Francis inhaled vomiting, which led to a “sudden aggravation of the respiratory image”. Doctors aspirated the vomiting and placed Francis on non -invasive mechanical ventilation.

The pope remained consciously and alert at any time and cooperated with the maneuvers to help him recover. He replied well, with a good level of oxygen exchange and continued to wear a mask to receive additional oxygen, the Vatican said.

The episode, which took place at the beginning of the after -marked a delay in what had been two successive days of increasingly delighted reports from the doctors treating Francis at the Rome Hospital on February 14th. The Pope, who had part of the lungs as a young man, had a pulmonary disease and was admitted after a rooted bronchitis and turned into pneumonia and was admitted to both rafts.

Doctors say the episode is alarming

The Vatican said that the episode was different from the prolonged respiratory crisis of February 22, which was said to have caused Francisc’s discomfort.

Dr. John Coleman, a pulmonary critic care doctor at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago, said that the episode isolated on Friday, as transmitted by the Vatican was still alarming and underlined Francisc’s fragility and that his condition “can turn very quickly”.

“I think this is extremely important, given that the Pope has now been in the hospital for more than two weeks, and now continues to have these respiratory events and has now had this aspiration event that requires higher levels of support,” he told the Associated Press.

“So, given his age, his fragile condition and his previous pulmonary resection, this is very concerned,” added Coleman, who is not involved in Francisc.

Dr. William Feldman, a pulmonary specialist at Bright and Women’s Hospital in Boston, said it was a good sign that the Pope had been alert and oriented during the episode, but agreed that he marked “a worrying turn.”

“We will often use non -invasive ventilation as a way to try to avoid intubation or use of invasive mechanical ventilation,” Feldman said.

Types of non -invasive ventilation include a BIPAP car, which helps people breathe by pushing air into the lungs. Doctors will often try such a car to see if the patient’s blood levels are improving, so that eventually returns to the use of oxygen alone. The statement on Friday said that Francis showed a “good response” in gas exchange using ventilation.

Doctors did not resume referring to the fact that Francis in “critical condition”, which was missing from their three -day statements now. But they say it is not in danger, given the complexity of its case.

Prayers continued to pour

Francis’s hospitalization came as the Vatican marks its holy year, which attracts pilgrims to Rome from all over the world. He walks through the holy door to St. Peter’s Basilica and also make pilgrimages to the Umbrian city of Assisi, to pray to the house of Francis, St. Francis.

“Every day we pray for the Pope,” said Jacinto Bento, a priest who visited Assisi on Saturday with a group of 30 pilgrims from the Azore islands. “We are very sad for his situation.”

Veronica Abraham, a Catechist and Argentine origin, came to Assisi on Saturday with the two children and other children in her parish on Lake Garda and said that the group prayed for the Pope at every church they had visited.

“I am sure he hears our prayers, that he feels our proximity,” she said.

Serena Barbon, who visited Assisi from Treviso on Saturday with her husband and the three children, said he hopes that if Francis did not, the next pope will be the same as him.

“He was very charismatic and we pray for him and that any new pope should be someone who puts the poor in the center. Because we are all a little poor, ”she said.

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Dell’orto reported from Assisi, Italy. The writer Associated Press, Carla K. Johnson, contributed to this report in Washington.

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