Pope Francis not out of ‘danger’ but condition improving, doctors say

Francis’ doctors delivered their first in-person update on the pope's condition, saying that he will remain hospitalized at least all of next week.

Pope Francis’ condition isn’t life-threatening, but he’s not out of danger, his medical team said Friday, as the 88-year-old pontiff marked his first week in a hospital with pneumonia on top of chronic bronchitis.

Francis’ doctors delivered their first in-person update on the pope’s condition, saying that he will remain hospitalized at least all of next week. The pope is receiving occasional supplements of oxygen when he needs it and is responding to the strengthened drug therapy he is receiving to fight pneumonia and a complex lung infection, his doctors said Friday.

Gemelli hospital Dr. Sergio Alfieri and Francis’ personal physician, Dr. Luigi Carbone gave the detailed update on Francis’ condition.

Carbone said Francis was responding to the drug therapy that was “strengthened” after the pneumonia was diagnosed earlier this week. He is also fighting a multipronged infection of bacteria and virus in the respiratory tract. Doctors said there was no evidence the germs had entered his bloodstream, a condition known as sepsis that they said would be the biggest concern. Sepsis is a complication of an infection that can lead to organ failure and death.

Francis is also receiving supplemental oxygen when he needs it through a nasal cannula, a thin flexible tube that delivers oxygen through the nose.

Francis was admitted to Rome’s Gemelli hospital on Feb. 14 after a case of bronchitis worsened. Doctors later diagnosed a complex respiratory infection, involving bacteria, virus and other organisms and the onset of pneumonia in both lungs on top of asthmatic bronchitis. They prescribed “absolute rest.”

As his hospital stay drags on, some of Francis’ cardinals have begun responding to the obvious question that is circulating: whether Francis might resign if he becomes irreversibly sick and unable to carry on. Francis has said he would consider it, after Pope Benedict XVI “opened the door” to popes retiring, but has shown no signs of stepping down and in fact has asserted recently that the job of pope is for life.

Before the medical team’s update on Friday, the Vatican said that Francis marked the one-week point in his hospital stay by getting up and out of bed to eat breakfast. Late Thursday, the Vatican reported a “slight improvement” in his overall clinical condition, with his heart working well.