Chris Muhizi for MCN Wednesday June 7/2023.
According to the Vatican press office, Pope Francis is getting ready for abdominal surgery at a hospital in Rome.
“The Holy Father went to the Gemelli University Hospital where in the early afternoon he will undergo a surgical operation of laparotomy and plastic surgery of the abdominal wall,” said a Vatican announcement released on Wednesday.
The medical staff attending the pope had previously approved the treatment because of “a lacerated incisional hernia that is causing recurrent, painful, and worsening sub-occlusive syndromes,” according to the Vatican.
The 86-year-old pope is anticipated to spend “several days” in the hospital to allow for a full recovery.
Francis has been admitted to the hospital twice in the past few months.
The pope was recovering from bronchitis at the Gemelli at the end of March when a swarm of television news crews and reporters gathered in front of the facility. After three days, he was allowed to leave. says Aljazeera.
Francis manages to have a full schedule despite his health problems. His trip to Mongolia, one of the many faraway places countries he has visited, from August 31 to September 4 will be confirmed by the Vatican on Saturday.
In the meanwhile, he will go to Portugal from August 2–6 in order to attend World Youth Day in Lisbon and see the Shrine of Fatima. A timetable for the trip was made public by the Vatican on Tuesday, indicating that it had been authorized.
Francis, an Argentinean by birth, assumed the papacy in 2013 following Benedict XVI’s unexpected resignation, which scared the entire world.
Francis is the first pope to come from the so-called Global South, which includes Latin America, Africa, and a large portion of Asia and is currently where the majority of Christians live in the globe.
Because of his ongoing knee problems, the pope frequently utilizes a wheelchair or a cane to get around. Because the general anesthesia for his colon surgery produced unpleasant side effects, he decided not to have surgery on his knee last year.