The Holy Father came very close to death, according to this report from CNA:
The head of the medical team that treated Pope Francis during the 38 days he spent at Rome’s Gemelli Polyclinic Hospital, Dr. Sergio Alfieri, revealed that one of the most critical moments of his hospitalization was when they had to choose between continuing the therapy or letting the pope die.
“We had to choose whether to stop and let him go, or push it and try every drug and therapy possible, running the extremely high risk of damaging other organs,” he said in an interview with the Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera.
In the interview, Alfieri described in detail the doctors’ response to the respiratory crisis suffered by the pope on Feb. 28.
According to the medical report published that day, Pope Francis suffered an isolated attack of bronchospasm, a severe coughing fit that suddenly worsened his clinical condition, after days of moderate optimism at the Vatican.
Although the pope never lost consciousness and cooperated with the specialists’ therapeutic maneuvers, the alarms went off, and doctors opted to place him on a noninvasive mechanical ventilation mask to help him breathe.
“For the first time, I saw tears in the eyes of some people who were close to him. People who, I’ve come to understand during this period of hospitalization, truly love him, like a father. We were all aware that the situation had worsened further and there was a risk that he might not make it,” Alfieri explained.
However, despite the risk of causing irreversible kidney and bone marrow damage due to the medical treatment he underwent, they decided to act. “We really thought we wouldn’t make it,” he said.
