Thursday, March 31, 2005
Pope Develops High Fever From Infection as His Health Weakens
By IAN FISHER
VATICAN CITY, Friday, April 1 - The health of Pope John Paul II hit another serious crisis on Thursday, after he developed a high fever because of a urinary tract infection, the Vatican said.
In a spare statement of three sentences, his chief spokesman, Dr. Joaquin Navarro-Valls, said the 84-year-old pope, who has looked gaunt and weak as his health has declined drastically in recent weeks, was receiving antibiotics to treat the infection.
"The clinical situation is being closely watched by the Vatican medical team treating him," the statement said.
With little information coming out of the Vatican - and amid a flow pilgrims to St. Peter's Square with the news that the pope's life may be in danger - there seemed conflicting signs of just how grave this latest crisis is.
Quoting anonymous Vatican officials, the Italian news agency ANSA said that the pope, fitted with a feeding tube only on Wednesday, was responding well to the antibiotics. Nicola Cerbino, a spokesman for the Gemelli hospital clinic in Rome, where the pope was admitted twice in February with the flu and serious problems breathing, said there were no plans to readmit him "tonight - at least for the moment."
Yet Italian news agencies reported that the pope, suffering for years from Parkinson's disease, had been administered the Catholic sacrament for the sick and dying, often called Last Rites or Extreme Unction. There was no confirmation from the Vatican, and spokesmen for the pope could not be reached early on Friday morning.
The last time he is known to have been administered last rites was on May 13, 1981, after he was shot by a would-be assassin in St. Peter's Square, almost three years after he was chosen pope.
Early Friday morning, the pitch of worry around the Vatican and among the faithful was especially high, after a Holy Week in which he was too sick to attend any of the ceremonies except for mass on Easter Sunday. Even then, he was so weak that no words came out of his mouth when he tried to deliver his traditional blessing from the window of his apartment of St. Peter's Square.
On Wednesday, in his most recent public appearance, he tried to speak again, but also failed. Hours later, the Vatican announced that doctors had threaded a feeding tube through his nose and into his stomach to ensure that he was properly nourished. The news came in the first medical statement from the Vatican in more than two weeks and unlike a string of earlier more upbeat reports, it characterized the pope's recovery as "slow."
After months of what seemed relatively stable health, the pope's condition has spiraled since Feb. 1, when he was admitted to Gemelli hospital suffering from flu, fever and spasms of the throat that caused severe problems breathing. He was discharged on Feb. 10, but was rushed to the hospital two weeks later with similar symptoms. That night, doctors performed a tracheotomy to insert a breathing tube into his windpipe.
Doctors said that urinary tract infections are usually treatable, but that the pope's age and advanced illness could present complications.
Dr. Harry Fisch, professor of clinical urology at Columbia University Medical Center in New York, said such infections in men the pope's age typically come from the prostate "and they can be severe."
"These infections tend to be readily treatable with antibiotics," Dr. Fisch said. "They are normally not life-threatening, but in the elderly and debilitated, they can be. The fever won't drop immediately. It can take a day."
Dr. Fisch said that a catheter - a tube inserted into the bladder of bed-bound patients to drain urine - can make such infections worse. The Vatican has not said whether the pope has such a catheter.
Doctors said that infections often cause a drop in blood pressure - and several unconfirmed news reports said the pope was in fact suffering from a loss of blood pressure. Such a drop in blood pressure, doctors said, can lead to decreased levels of consciousness.
Just after midnight here, the entrance to St. Peter's Square was ringed by dozens of television cameras and journalists, as well as pilgrims and tourists peering up to the window of the pope's apartment, where he has made his most recent, pained appearances.
The light in his apartment was shut off around 11 p.m. local time Thursday, later than the pope's usual bedtime. But a light in a room with medical equipment remained on past midnight, though with an extremely small circle of people attending to the pope and his health, it was impossible know whether this was significant.
In the last two months of this most serious phase of the pope's illness, the faithful seemed of two minds about his decline: Despite many contentious positions on social issues, the pope has remained extremely popular among the faithful, and many pilgrims have expressed deep sorrow at the prospect that he might die soon.
But many have worried too about his deep suffering - evident in every recent public appearance.
"He'll finally be at peace," said James Butler, 16, part of group of students from Dublin visiting Rome, who arrived at the Vatican just after midnight on Friday to pay their respects.
Unlike in the pope's other recent health crises, Italian news media switched their programming to extensive coverage not only of the pope's health, but of his life and legacy. The state broadcaster RAI interrupted its television political talk shows on Thursday to ask guests to comment on the pope. Several stations began airing long retrospectives of his 26-year pontificate, one of the longest in the history of the Roman Catholic church.
Elisabeth Rosenthal of The International Herald Tribune and Jason Horowitz of The New York Times contributed reporting from Rome for this article.
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By IAN FISHER
VATICAN CITY, Friday, April 1 - The health of Pope John Paul II hit another serious crisis on Thursday, after he developed a high fever because of a urinary tract infection, the Vatican said.
In a spare statement of three sentences, his chief spokesman, Dr. Joaquin Navarro-Valls, said the 84-year-old pope, who has looked gaunt and weak as his health has declined drastically in recent weeks, was receiving antibiotics to treat the infection.
"The clinical situation is being closely watched by the Vatican medical team treating him," the statement said.
With little information coming out of the Vatican - and amid a flow pilgrims to St. Peter's Square with the news that the pope's life may be in danger - there seemed conflicting signs of just how grave this latest crisis is.
Quoting anonymous Vatican officials, the Italian news agency ANSA said that the pope, fitted with a feeding tube only on Wednesday, was responding well to the antibiotics. Nicola Cerbino, a spokesman for the Gemelli hospital clinic in Rome, where the pope was admitted twice in February with the flu and serious problems breathing, said there were no plans to readmit him "tonight - at least for the moment."
Yet Italian news agencies reported that the pope, suffering for years from Parkinson's disease, had been administered the Catholic sacrament for the sick and dying, often called Last Rites or Extreme Unction. There was no confirmation from the Vatican, and spokesmen for the pope could not be reached early on Friday morning.
The last time he is known to have been administered last rites was on May 13, 1981, after he was shot by a would-be assassin in St. Peter's Square, almost three years after he was chosen pope.
Early Friday morning, the pitch of worry around the Vatican and among the faithful was especially high, after a Holy Week in which he was too sick to attend any of the ceremonies except for mass on Easter Sunday. Even then, he was so weak that no words came out of his mouth when he tried to deliver his traditional blessing from the window of his apartment of St. Peter's Square.
On Wednesday, in his most recent public appearance, he tried to speak again, but also failed. Hours later, the Vatican announced that doctors had threaded a feeding tube through his nose and into his stomach to ensure that he was properly nourished. The news came in the first medical statement from the Vatican in more than two weeks and unlike a string of earlier more upbeat reports, it characterized the pope's recovery as "slow."
After months of what seemed relatively stable health, the pope's condition has spiraled since Feb. 1, when he was admitted to Gemelli hospital suffering from flu, fever and spasms of the throat that caused severe problems breathing. He was discharged on Feb. 10, but was rushed to the hospital two weeks later with similar symptoms. That night, doctors performed a tracheotomy to insert a breathing tube into his windpipe.
Doctors said that urinary tract infections are usually treatable, but that the pope's age and advanced illness could present complications.
Dr. Harry Fisch, professor of clinical urology at Columbia University Medical Center in New York, said such infections in men the pope's age typically come from the prostate "and they can be severe."
"These infections tend to be readily treatable with antibiotics," Dr. Fisch said. "They are normally not life-threatening, but in the elderly and debilitated, they can be. The fever won't drop immediately. It can take a day."
Dr. Fisch said that a catheter - a tube inserted into the bladder of bed-bound patients to drain urine - can make such infections worse. The Vatican has not said whether the pope has such a catheter.
Doctors said that infections often cause a drop in blood pressure - and several unconfirmed news reports said the pope was in fact suffering from a loss of blood pressure. Such a drop in blood pressure, doctors said, can lead to decreased levels of consciousness.
Just after midnight here, the entrance to St. Peter's Square was ringed by dozens of television cameras and journalists, as well as pilgrims and tourists peering up to the window of the pope's apartment, where he has made his most recent, pained appearances.
The light in his apartment was shut off around 11 p.m. local time Thursday, later than the pope's usual bedtime. But a light in a room with medical equipment remained on past midnight, though with an extremely small circle of people attending to the pope and his health, it was impossible know whether this was significant.
In the last two months of this most serious phase of the pope's illness, the faithful seemed of two minds about his decline: Despite many contentious positions on social issues, the pope has remained extremely popular among the faithful, and many pilgrims have expressed deep sorrow at the prospect that he might die soon.
But many have worried too about his deep suffering - evident in every recent public appearance.
"He'll finally be at peace," said James Butler, 16, part of group of students from Dublin visiting Rome, who arrived at the Vatican just after midnight on Friday to pay their respects.
Unlike in the pope's other recent health crises, Italian news media switched their programming to extensive coverage not only of the pope's health, but of his life and legacy. The state broadcaster RAI interrupted its television political talk shows on Thursday to ask guests to comment on the pope. Several stations began airing long retrospectives of his 26-year pontificate, one of the longest in the history of the Roman Catholic church.
Elisabeth Rosenthal of The International Herald Tribune and Jason Horowitz of The New York Times contributed reporting from Rome for this article.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company | Home | Privacy Policy | Search | Corrections | RSS | Help | Back to Top
