The Pope's health condition , on his 36th day of hospitalization at the Gemelli Polyclinic for bilateral pneumonia, "remains stable , with some small improvements in terms of activity, motor skills, gas exchange, and therefore breathing ."
The Vatican Press Office reported this, in the absence of a new medical bulletin after the one issued on Wednesday. Non-invasive mechanical ventilation remains suspended at night, while high-flow oxygen with nasal cannulas is also administered in a gradually reduced manner during the day.
The Pontiff spent these days "between pharmacological therapies, respiratory and motor physiotherapy, partly work activity, and prayer".
As for next Sunday's Angelus, the current forecast is that it will still be in written form, as has been the case for the last five Sundays.
The Pope has not received any new visitors, apart from his close collaborators for work paperwork, while the doctors have not yet given any indication of when he will leave the hospital, nor of a new meeting with the press. There has still been no decision from the Holy See on how the Easter rites will be held and who will preside over them, beyond the hypotheses that have been circulating in recent days.
"The Pope is very well but the high-flow oxygen dries everything out. He has to learn to speak again but the state of his body is as before ," said this evening the Cardinal Prefect of the Faith, Victor Manuel Fernandez , on the sidelines of the presentation of the Pope's book "Viva la poesia", edited by Father Antonio Spadaro for Ares editions. When asked if he will be in the Vatican for Easter, the Argentinean Fernandez - Francis's reference theologian and one of the people closest to him - replied: "He could come back but the doctors want to be 100% sure because he thinks that in the little time he has left he wants to spend everything for others and not for himself." The cardinal recalled that "the Pope did not want to go to the hospital, very close friends convinced him, I don't know what bad words they used..."
