Pope Francis rests after pneumonia recovery set back by bronchial spasm

Pope Francis is resting after a setback in his two-week recovery from double pneumonia which saw doctors put him on ventilation after a coughing fit in which he inhaled vomit.

Doctors said it would take a day or two to evaluate how and if the episode had impacted Francis’s overall clinical condition. His prognosis remains guarded, meaning he is not out of danger.

In a brief update on Saturday morning, the Vatican said: “The night has passed quietly, the Pope is resting.”

Late on Friday, the Vatican had said the 88-year-old suffered an “isolated crisis of bronchial spasm”, a coughing fit in which Francis inhaled vomit, which resulted in a “sudden worsening of the respiratory picture”.

Doctors aspirated the vomit and placed Francis on non-invasive mechanical ventilation.

The Pope remained conscious and alert at all times and co-operated with the manoeuvres to help him recover. He responded well, with a good level of oxygen exchange and was continuing to wear a mask to receive supplemental oxygen, the Vatican said.

The episode marked a setback after two days of increasingly upbeat reports from doctors who have been treating Francis at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital since February 14.

The Pope, who had part of one lung removed as a young man, has lung disease and was admitted after a bout of bronchitis worsened and turned into pneumonia in both lungs.

Doctors say the episode is alarming

The Vatican said the episode was different to the prolonged respiratory crisis on February 22, in that it was an isolated spasm that resulted in Francis aspirating the vomit that he produced.

Dr John Coleman, a pulmonary critical care doctor at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago, told the Associated Press: “I think this is extremely concerning, given the fact that the Pope has been in the hospital now for over two weeks, and now he’s continuing to have these respiratory events and now had this aspiration event that is requiring even higher levels of support.

“So given his age and his fragile state and his previous lung resection, this is very concerning.”

Types of non-invasive ventilation include a BiPAP machine, which helps people breathe by pushing air into their lungs. Doctors often try such a machine for a while to see if the patient’s blood gas levels improve so they can eventually go back to using oxygen alone.

Doctors have not described Francis as being in “critical condition” for three days now, but they say he is not out of danger, given the complexity of his case.

Late on Friday, Francis’s closest friend in the Vatican bureaucracy, Argentine Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez, led the nightly prayer in St Peter’s Square to pray for the pontiff’s health.

With other cardinals bundled against the night chill, he told the crowd: “Certainly it is close to the Holy Father’s heart that our prayer is not only for him, but also for all those who in this particular dramatic and suffering moment of the world bear the hard burden of war, of sickness, of poverty.”

Also on Friday, the Vatican published a document signed by Francis on February 26 as “From the Gemelli Polyclinic”, a new official tagline that showed Francis was still working from the hospital.