“He is awake with a steady clinical picture”
The president emeritus of the Republic Giorgio Napolitano, 96, underwent an operation on the abdomen at the Spallanzani hospital in Rome. The intervention was carried out by the team of Professor Giuseppe Maria Ettorre, the same hospital gave the news. “The intervention, conducted with a minimally invasive technique, was successful – reads the press release – The patient is currently hospitalized in the Intensive Care Unit of Inmi Spallanzani. The president is awake with a stable clinical picture. The prognosis remains confidential”. Professor Ettorre is one of the leading experts in the field of cancer surgery, hepatobiliary surgery and liver transplantation. Napolitano, said the surgeon, “is fine and has passed the operation. His conditions are compatible with those of a patient of his age”.
It is the second intervention for Napolitano since he left the presidency of the Republic, in early 2015, after two years of the second term. On 24 April 2018, in fact, nine days after speaking with President Mattarella at the Quirinale for consultations after the elections, the senator for life was hospitalized at the San Camillo hospital in Rome due to a sudden illness and underwent a complex intervention. to the aorta, performed by Professor Francesco Musumeci. He was discharged on May 22nd. Since then, the former tenant of the Colle has reduced his physical presence in Palazzo Madama, while continuing to follow political life.
The following October 16 he was in the Chamber listening to Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte for communications in view of the European Council and President Casellati greeted him affectionately underlining his “institutional passion”. Even in the consultations conducted by the head of state for the birth of the Conte II governments, in 2019, and Draghi, in 2021, albeit by telephone, Mattarella heard the advice of his predecessor. And at the moment of both votes of confidence Napolitano – although absent in the courtroom “for health reasons”, as he himself said – wanted to publicly make known his support to the two executives. Also from home, on February 3 last year, the inauguration ceremony for the second term as president of the Republic of Mattarella followed “with participation”, with which he had congratulated four days earlier, immediately after his re-election. Napolitano received, directly and through social media, the wishes of politicians and ordinary citizens.
