Pope Francis came so close to death at one point during his 38-day fight in hospital against pneumonia that his doctors considered ending treatment so he could die in peace, the head of the pope’s medical team said.
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After a breathing crisis on February 28 that involved Francis nearly choking on his vomit, “there was a real risk he might not make it,” said Sergio Alfieri, a doctor at Rome’s Gemelli hospital.
“We had to choose if we would stop there and let him go, or to go forward and push it with all the drugs and therapies possible, running the highest risk of damaging his other organs,” Alfieri told Italy’s Corriere della Sera in an interview published on Tuesday.
“In the end, we took this path,” he said.
Francis, 88, returned to the Vatican on Sunday after the most serious health crisis of his 12-year papacy.
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He was admitted to Gemelli hospital on February 14 for a bout of bronchitis that developed into double pneumonia, an especially serious condition for him, as he had pleurisy as a young adult and had part of one lung removed.
The Vatican provided an unusual amount of detail in its daily updates on the pope’s condition during his stay in hospital, which included four “respiratory crises” involving serious coughing fits caused by constrictions in his airways, akin to asthma attacks.