Since the beginning of 2022 his knee has gotten worse. He walks badly, he now uses a wheelchair more and more often, he has often missed important commitments and even a planned trip to Africa in early July. But Pope Francis is firm in his position: he does not want to operate to try to resolve the knee pain.
The reason, according to health sources, is to want to avoid the consequences of anesthesia, which evidently had deeply affected him after the colon operation he underwent in July 2021, which turned out to be more laborious than expected. Now – as revealed by Cope, an agency of the Spanish CEI – a new doctor will arrive to treat him, Professor José Maria Villalón, head of the medical staff of Atletico Madrid, a true “eminence” in the field of traumatology and sports medicine .
The contacts started by the Spanish Episcopal Conference and the Nunciature in Madrid
“Both the Spanish Bishops’ Conference and the Vatican Nunciature in Spain have asked a group of specialists if the Pope could be helped, given the situation he is going through”, the same doctor told Cope. “We see him in a wheelchair, and we’ve been asked if we can help him improve his mobility and stop his arthritic process.” The doctor confided that in the first contact with the Pope he felt nervous because «it is a responsibility given that it is a question of getting a world figure back into shape. We have the handicap that he is not a normal patient due to his great activity, perhaps the Pope will have more difficulty due to his complicated schedules, but I am optimistic, the Pope can be helped ».
The doctor Villalón: the Pope is a nice patient and also stubborn
So it will be a medical cure, and not a surgical one, even if this path would be the solution to a joint problem. For months he has instead chosen to put less strain on his knee by using a wheelchair and, when he is better, a cane. He undergoes long sessions of physiotherapy and also pharmacological therapies. The Atletico doctor will have to start from here to lend a hand in solving, or at least alleviating, the Pope’s walking problems. Villalón in fact spoke of Pope Francis as “a very nice but very stubborn patient, in the sense that he they are surgical proposals that he does not want. More conservative treatments have to be offered for him to accept ».