The surgeon who was at Pope Francis’s bedside when he d!ed has revealed how the late pontiff approached his tragic last moments – and how doctors fulfilled one of his final wishes
Sergio Alfieri, who performed two crucial operations on the Pope in 2021 and 2023, said he failed to respond to any stimuli from medical staff as he lay open-eyed in a coma shortly before his death.
Alfieri, the Pope’s chief surgeon who coordinated the Holy Father’s doctors at the Gemelli hospital, said the late pontiff did not appear to have any breathing problems after he visited his Santa Marta residence.
But the 88-year-old failed to answer when Alfieri called out to him and did not even respond to painful stimuli.
It was at this point that the surgeon, who fulfilled one of Pope’s final wishes in letting him die at home rather than the hospital, said there was ‘nothing more to be done’.
The revelations came as tens of thousands of mourners flooded St. Peter’s Basilica to pay their respects to the late pontiff ahead of this weekend’s funeral.
Security measures have been heightened around the Vatican as police expect large crowds for the event.
Reflecting back on the Pope’s final days, Alfieri said he saw the late pontiff on Saturday afternoon in good spirits.
Francis seemed ‘very well’ and seemed determined to carry out his papal duties less than 48 hours before his death, the surgeon said.
He even asked the surgeon to organise a meeting with the 70 staff members who had treated him during his stay at the Rome hospital for Wednesday.
Early on Monday, however, the surgeon received a call from the Pope’s personal nurse, Massimiliano Strappetti, who warned that the pontiff’s condition was worsening and that he may need to return to Gemelli hospital.
Alfieri arrived at Casa Santa Marta, the spartan Vatican lodge Francis chose to live in for 12 years, 20 minutes later.
The surgeon, who performed two crucial operations on Francis at Gemelli Hospital in July 2021 and June 2023, told Strappetti that the pontiff’s time was likely coming to an end, however, and there was no need to transport him.
‘We risked letting him die during transport, I explained that hospitalisation would have been useless,’ he told Italian outlet Corriere Della Sera.
‘Strappetti knew that the Pope wanted to die at home, when we were at the Gemelli he always said so.
‘He passed away shortly after.
‘I remained there with Massimiliano, Andrea, the other nurses and the secretaries; then they all arrived and Cardinal Parolin asked us to pray and we recited the rosary with him. I felt privileged and now I can say that I was.
‘That morning I gave him a caress as a last farewell.’
When Alfieri first entered the Pope’s Santa Marta residence on Monday morning, he said it was ‘difficult to think that he needed to be hospitalised’.
Francis’s eyes were open and he had no breathing problems, but the surgeon said that he was not responding to any stimuli.
He added: ‘On Monday at about 5:30 Strappetti called me [saying]: “The Holy Father is very ill, we must return to Gemelli”.
‘I pre-alerted everyone and twenty minutes later I was there in Santa Marta.
‘I entered his room and his eyes were open. I noticed that he had no breathing problems and then I tried to call him but he didn’t answer.
‘He didn’t respond to stimuli, not even painful ones. At that moment I understood that there was nothing more to be done. He was in a coma.’
Transporting Francis to Gemelli hospital wouldn’t have improved his chances of survival, he claimed.
‘Even doing a CT scan would have given us a more precise diagnosis, but nothing more,’ Alfieri told Italian newspaper La Repubblica.
‘It was one of those strokes that take you away in an hour.’
The late Pope was admitted to hospital on February 14 this year and was subsequently diagnosed with double pneumonia.
He was released just over a month later and started to make public appearances, including his final one on Easter Sunday as he greeted thousands of people at St. Peter’s Square in his popemobile.
In the weeks before his death, he told doctors he did not want artificial respiration, which could have prolonged his life by a few days.
On the morning he suffered a stroke, the medical staff present at the Pope’s bedside noticed something was wrong as soon as he woke up.
‘At 5am, the Holy Father woke up to drink a glass of water,’ Alfieri told La Repubblica.
‘He rolled onto his side and the nurse noticed that something was wrong.
‘He was struggling to react. The Vatican doctor on duty for resuscitation was called. They called me around 5:30 a.m. and I was on the scene within fifteen minutes. I found him with oxygen and an infusion.
‘I listened to his lungs, which were clean, without rattling. His eyes were open, but he wasn’t responding to questions or to the pain of the pinches.
‘He was already in a coma. His pulse was slowing and his breathing was becoming more and more shallow.’
He d!ed at 7.35am local time on Monday, just over two hours after Alfieri received the worrying phone call from Strappetti.
‘He d!ed without suffering, and at home,’ Alfieri added.
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