Anxious hospital watch on pope

2005-02-02 07:34

Rome - Doctors and aides were keeping an anxious watch on a frail and flu-stricken Pope John Paul II at a Rome hospital early on Wednesday, after the 84-year-old pontiff was rushed there fighting for breath just hours before.

The pope's health has periodically given cause for concern in recent years as he fought the effects of advanced age and Parkinson's disease, but not since a would-be assassin's bullet just missed his heart in 1981 has he appeared so close to sudden death.

Papal spokesperson Joaquin Navarro-Valls said in a statement that the pontiff had been fighting for breath with throat spasms when he was rushed to the Gemelli hospital shortly before 23:00 on Tuesday.

Navarro-Valls said the pope was suffering from a laryngo-spasm, a medical term for the closure of the larynx that blocks the passage of air to the lungs. In severe cases, it can require a tracheotomy to be performed. Increasingly frail

As journalists and television crews swarmed around the hospital entrance, medical sources quoted by Italy's Ansa news agency said early on Wednesday they expected the pontiff to have a quiet night without further complications.

Doctors said a first medical report is planned for 08:00.

They said the health report would be compiled by the Pope's personal doctor, Dr Renato Buzzonetti, who had left Rome's Gemelli hospital towards 00:30 and was due to return in several hours.

In recent years, the pope has appeared increasingly frail, and the world's Roman Catholics have grown used to his pronounced shortness of breath during his public appearances.

Despite his poor health, the pontiff has a busy agenda, with regular public appearances and private audiences. He also plans to continue his foreign visits, with a trip to Cologne in Germany being planned for next August to mark the Catholic World Youth Day celebrations.

Last year, he visited Switzerland and France.

However, only just before Christmas, he admitted to senior Church prelates that "the passage of years has made ever more clear to me the need for God's help and the help of man."

Many of his health problems can be traced back to May 13, 1981, three years after his election as pope. He nearly died in an assassination attempt as Ali Agca, a right-wing Turkish fanatic, shot him at close range in St Peter's Square.

One bullet went through his abdomen and another just missed his heart. He survived after extensive intestinal surgery, but his health has been affected thereafter.

In July 1992, he was operated on for a benign intestinal tumour, which surgeons said was the size of an orange.

In November 1993, he received the first of two heavy falls, in which he was hospitalised with a fractured shoulder. He fell again in his bathroom in April 1994, breaking a thigh bone, and once again, in the Papal Nuncio's residence in Warsaw, receiving stitches in a head wound.

In between, he had an appendectomy in October 1996.

- AFP