Pope Francis’ doctor is sharing new details about the 88-year-old pontiff’s final hours, including why Francis wasn’t transported to the hospital after falling into a coma.
Francis, who had recently been hospitalized for 38 days after suffering from double pneumonia before his death on Monday, April 21, was still in recovery when he surprised the world by arriving in Saint Peter’s Square to give his Easter blessing the day before he died.
Speaking with Italian newspaper, Corriere della Sera, Dr. Sergio Alfieri, who oversaw the pontiff’s in-patient treatment and the recommended two-month recovery following his release on March 23, recalled seeing Francis after lunch on Saturday, April 19.
“I’m very well, I’ve started working again and I feel like it,” Alfieri remembered Francis saying to him, according to a translation of the interview.
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Pope Francis gave a blessing on Easter Sunday in Saint Peter’s Square
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He said that returning to work was part of the pontiff’s treatment plan, and “he never exposed himself to danger,” the Corriere della Sera reported.
But on Monday at 5:30 a.m. local time, Alfieri received an urgent call and was by Francis’ side in 20 minutes later.
“I entered his room and his eyes were open,” the doctor added. “I noticed that he had no breathing problems and then I tried to call him but he didn’t answer. He didn’t respond to stimuli, not even painful ones.”
Alfieri said he realized the pontiff was dying. “At that moment I understood that there was nothing more to be done,” he continued. “He was in a coma.”
He believed that taking Francis to the hospital would have been fruitless because he was in danger of dying during transport. Two hours later, he died.
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Vatican Media via Vatican Pool/Getty
The surgeon with the pontiff in June 2023 in Vatican City
According to the Vatican, Francis died at 7:35 a.m. local time due to a cerebral stroke that led to a coma and irreversible cardiocirculatory collapse.
The pontiff was also affected by a “previous episode of acute respiratory failure in bilateral multimicrobial pneumonia, multiple bronchiectasis, arterial hypertension and type II diabetes.”
“He died without suffering, at home,″ his doctor told another paper, La Repubblica.
Alfieri was able to caress him as his last goodbye, he told Corriere della Sera.
In the years before his death, Francis suffered from a number of health issues. He met Alfieri in 2018, and the surgeon performed abdominal surgery on him three years later.
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Despite Francis’ health issues, he was determined to get back to the church. He met with inmates at a prison in Rome, and before his appearance at Easter, he hosted Vice President J.D. Vance.
Alfieri said that the Pope also asked him to coordinate a meeting with the 70 people who had provided him care at the hospital on Wednesday, April 23, after he finished his convalescence, according to Corriere della Sera.
“Today I have the clear feeling that he felt he had to do a series of things before dying,” he told the paper.
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