The Pope began to receive physiotherapy on Monday to help him breathe and speak as doubts persisted over how effectively he will be able to communicate in future.
There were also signs of an intense debate among senior church figures over how long the Pope should stay in hospital. The spiritual leader of the world’s 1-billion baptised Roman Catholics was taken to the Gemelli Polyclinic hospital last Thursday because of acute breathing difficulties arising from a bout of influenza and exacerbated by Parkinson’s disease. On Thursday night he was given a tracheostomy, an operation that involves opening the windpipe so that a tube can be inserted.
On Monday the Vatican said in a bulletin that the ”post-operative phase is taking place without complications”. It added that the Pope ”is eating regularly, spends some hours in an armchair and has begun exercises to rehabilitate breathing and phonation.”
Vatican spokesperson did not, however, make themselves available to elaborate on the brief statement.
A source close to the medical team caring for the Pope said there was growing concern about whether his heart could stand up to the demands being made of it. However, the Vatican’s bulletin said that ”his general condition and biological parameters continue to be good”. Girolamo Sirchia, Italy’s health minister, who visited Vatican officials at the hospital, said he was optimistic the Pope would make a swift recovery.
A senior Vatican official on Monday added his voice to those calling for the pontiff to be given a lengthier convalescence than he had after being taken to hospital on February 1. In an interview with the Italian daily newspaper La Repubblica, Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan, head of the Vatican department responsible for health issues, said: ”Please, let’s not have him leave hospital too quickly this time.”
Many in the Vatican would agree on personal grounds. But the Pope is the head of an organisation that can do no more than tick over while he is out of action, and some senior prelates make no secret in private of their frustration.
The speech therapy suggested that his doctors intend to leave the tube in his throat for some time to come. Patients can be taught to speak by controlling a valve in the tube that allows exhaled air to be diverted over the larynx. But the speech generated in that way is abnormal and even before last week’s operation, the Pope was often unintelligible.
Christopher Milford, secretary of the British ear, nose and throat surgeons’ body, ENT UK, noted that speech therapists were also sometimes called in to help people with swallowing.
But he added: ”I think [the tube] will be there for a while. They will want to make sure that his chest is absolutely clear before taking it out.”
Leaving a tube inside his windpipe would help the Pope to breathe and give his doctors immediate access to his lungs in the event of another emergency.
But it would also increase the risk of an infection. For this reason, none of the distinguished wellwishers visiting the hospital was being allowed on to the 10th floor, where the pontiff is recovering, an informed source said. – Guardian Unlimited Â