On April 2, John Paul II returned to the Vatican to die in his apartment, attended by doctors from Gemelli. Meanwhile, Francis has been hospitalized at the Gemelli Hospital in Rome for 28 days, thus matching the second longest hospitalization of a pope alongside John Paul II in 1994.
Francis was admitted for respiratory problems and it was later discovered that he had bilateral pneumonia. He continues to require high-flow oxygen and mechanical ventilation at night. The doctors have not provided details on how much longer he will be hospitalized.
Before this hospitalization, Francis had been to Gemelli three times for various medical procedures. Francis and John Paul II are the only popes treated at this hospital, as Benedict XVI was never hospitalized.
John Paul II was the first to be treated at this hospital, admitted as an emergency in 1981 after being shot by a terrorist. Since then, an apartment in the hospital has been reserved exclusively for the pontiff, where he spent 55 days in 1981 for surgery and treatment for cytomegalovirus.
In total, John Paul II spent 153 days hospitalized at Gemelli on different occasions. In 1992, during the Sunday Angelus prayer, he announced that he would be admitted again to the hospital for a surgical intervention. His last hospitalization, in 2005, lasted 18 days, when he was already weakened by Parkinson's.
