Doctors pleased with Pope’s condition

Press, 21 May 1981, Page 8

Doctors pleased with Pope’s condition

NZPA-Reuter Rome Pope John Paul’s condition was described as splendid by a top American specialist yesterday, but doctors agreed that the Pope would need a long convalescence to recover from the gunshot wounds he sustained a week ago. Newspapers yesterday carried the first hospital picture of the Pope, propped up in bed and looking well despite the bandages on. his injured left hand and right arm. The Pope walked and drank some tea yesterday for the first time since the shooting and. a'spokesman for the Gemelli Hospital said he might be declared out of danger today. Dr Claude Welch, a specialist in 'abdominal injuries from Boston, examined the Pope with five other distinguished foreign consultants and said he was. “splendid.” While the Pope’s condition improved, the motives of the young Turk accused of shooting him in St Peter’s Square seemed increasingly obscure. Mehmet Ali Agca, who has told magistrates that .the Pope was “anti-Muslim,” said that he was planning to kill Britain’s monarch, until he discovered ; the sovereign was a woman. His other potential victims wece the: United Nations

Secretary-General (Dr Kurt Waldheim) and Mrs Simone Veil, the French president of the. European Parliament. But inquirers were sceptical about his. confusion over the Queen, since he speaks good English and showed his knowledge of world affairs by asking for about 20 European newspapers by ; name, police sources said. The request was turned down because Agca is being kept in isolation. He sleeps little and follows Muslim practice by refusing pork j and alcohol, but the sources said ha? had net been seen .

praying. Scotland Yard has said there is no evidence to back Agca’s assertion that he had been to Britain. . The six foreign doctors who examined the Pope and reviewed his progress with his Italian medical team said in a bulletin he was in “good general .condition.” But<the consultants — two Americans, a Pole, a West German, a Spaniard and a Frenchman — said he would need a “prolonged period of care and convalescence.” The doctors praised the rapid and efficient emergency surgery that may have

saved the Pope’s life after he was hit by two bullets. ? “He’s a remarkable man,” Dr Kevin Cahill, of New York, said, “His strength and stamina were obvious to physicians, even in the midst of his own suffering.’’ But Dr Cahill refused to give a more optimistic prognosis than the Italian medi- ■ cal b team who have said that-, .the' Pope is still not out of.’, danger. . . Asked, whether the Pope' would make a full recovery, . he answered: >“I think there, is always doubt as long as ar patient is as sick as he i&”| :