Pope Francis, slows down as he ages, appoints personal medical assistant According to Reuters

By Philip Pullella

(Reuters) – Pope Francis has appointed a nurse from Vatican health services as his “personal medical assistant”, the Vatican said on Thursday, in a sign the pope accepted that he will need more care as he gets older.

Speaking to reporters on the plane returning from a visit to Canada on Saturday, the 85-year-old pontiff said increasing age and travel difficulties have ushered in a new, slower phase of his pontificate. his papacy.

In a statement on Thursday, the Vatican identified the aide as Massimiliano Strappetti, coordinator of the nurses and medical facilities of the Vatican, a sovereign state surrounded by Rome.

The position of “personal medical assistant” did not previously exist during this pontificate, although Pope John Paul II, who died in 2005, had some medical care in his later years.

Francis already has a personal doctor, a geriatrician at Gemelli Hospital in Rome, where Francis had bowel surgery a year ago. It was the first time the Pope had been hospitalized since his election in 2013.

Last year, Francis joked in an interview that it was Strapetti who “saved my life” by convincing him he couldn’t stop the surgery anymore.

Francis had severe narrowing of the colon due to diverticulitis, or the formation of small, bulging pouches on the intestinal wall.

In recent months, Francis has had to use a wheelchair, cane or walker because of knee pain caused by small fractures and inflamed ligaments.

“I don’t think I can continue to do trips with the same rhythm as before,” he said in his comments to reporters on his way home from Canada.

I think that at my age and with this limitation, I have to preserve (my strength) a little bit to be able to serve the Church, or decide to step aside,” said Francis.

Francis said he doesn’t want knee surgery because he doesn’t want a repeat of the long-term negative side effects from anesthesia he suffered after last year’s bowel surgery.

“But I’ll try to keep traveling to be close to people because that’s a way of serving,” he said.

In an interview with Reuters last month, Francis repeated his often-stated view that he could one day step down if his ill health made it impossible for him to run the Church – something close unthinkable before Benedict XVI resigned in 2013.