He did not want “extreme” therapies, care “at any cost”. Pope Francis had placed a clear limit, shared with the doctors who had been following him for some time: no to therapeutic allocation. A request that, in the decisive moment, guided every choice of the medical team that was next to him. To tell it is Sergio Alfieri, director of the Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences of the Gemelli Polyclinicin an interview with Republic.
«He asked us to avoid therapeutic fury. If he had lost consciousness, We should have followed the directives of his personal health assistant, Massimiliano Strappetti, who for the Holy Father was like a son», Explains Alfieri, who knew the pontiff well: he had operated it in 2021 to the colon and, again, two years later for another abdominal problem.
Sergio Alfieri
Alessia Giuliani / IPA-AGENCY.NETHis was a will expressly expressed for some time. «Already in 2021 he had asked me to avoid, if the event was presented, the therapeutic fury. During the last hospitalization he expressly asked not to proceed in any case to intubationAlfieri said. «The intubation would help him breathe. But it would have been difficult to go back and establish it, with the lungs infected with viruses, mushrooms, kittens. We would have only prolonged his life of a few days ». For the Pope he had no sense.
His relationship with the doctors, says Alfieri, was complex: «In general he trusted little, but in the last period he had closer to us. When a doctor spoke to him he looked at Stratappetti. Only after a nod of consent followed our advice. He always said: “The doctor of Pope Francis is Jorge Bergoglio”».
Over the years, however, confidence had grown, even if sometimes riding the natural came. After the first intervention he had been prescribed a diet, but he, as a greedy as he was, “At night he went to the kitchens of Santa Marta for an extra snack. He had about ten kilos too many. Sometimes I had to seem too rigorous to him, because he stuck me: “Remember to live with irony” ».
After the most recent resignation, the doctors had recommended two months of rest, without meetings. «He followed the advice enough, but after three weeks he asked to accommodate the entire team of Gemelli in the Vatican. He already had the list in his hand: from doctors to doors, from nurses to chefs, there were 70 people. ” When Alfieri tried to dissuade him, Francesco limited himself to thanking him. “To the third” thank you “I understood that I was dismissed.”
Strappetti, his silent “guardian angel”, was “the person he trusted most, but sometimes he also struggled. He had been sick for several weeks when in mid -February Strappetti managed to impose himself and convince him to hospitalize»Remember Alfieri. Pope Francis, initially, had not taken it well: «He was angry. He wanted to stay 24 hours at most and then return to his agenda ».
Then, the last night. At five in the morning, Francesco woke up asking for a glass of water. He turned on his side, and immediately the nurse realized that there was something wrong. «He had his eyes open, but he did not answer questions or requests. He was already in a coma. The wrist was slowing down and the breath became more and more superficial. He died without suffering, and and his home. At the Gemelli he did not say: I want to return to Santa Marta. He said: I want to go home ».
Transfer it to the hospital, at that moment, would have been useless. «We thought for a moment to take him to Gemelli, but he would have died during transport. Even a CT would have given a more precise diagnosis, but would not have changed anything. It was one of those strokes that take you away in an hour».
Alfieri had visited him on Saturday. “He was happy to be at the Regina Coeli prison on Holy Thursday. However, he realized that the physique was now struggling to follow the head. He was regretted not washing his feet to the prisoners: “This time I did not succeed”, is the last thing he told me “.
Source: Vanity Fair

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