Pope Francis was discharged from hospital on Friday morning, nine days after surgery to repair an abdominal hernia.
Leaving Rome’s Gemelli hospital in a wheelchair, the 86-year-old pontiff smiled and waved to well-wishers as he was taken to his car.
Asked how he was as he left hospital, the pope responded, “still alive”.
“The pope is well. He is in better shape than before,” Dr Sergio Alfieri, the chief surgeon who carried out the three-hour operation on June 7, said.
Although Francis will skip his general audience in the square next Wednesday “to safeguard his post-operative recovery”, he will recite the noon prayer on Sunday in St Peter’s Square.
“He will be able to carry out his duties better than before because he no longer will have the discomfort. He will be a stronger pope,” Dr Alfieri said.
“He already has resumed working. We asked him to rest a bit and I am certain that this time he will listen to us a bit more because he has some important commitments, which he told us he would respect.”
As he was being taken to the car, Francis was asked about the latest migrant tragedy off the coast of Greece, where at least 79 people drowned early on Wednesday and hundreds more were missing and feared dead.
“So much pain, so much,” Italian media quoted him as saying.
In July 2021, Francis spent 10 days at Gemelli to remove a section of his large intestine. He had suffered what the Vatican said was a severe inflammation and narrowing of the colon.
In an interview with The Associated Press in January, Francis said the diverticulosis, or bulges in his intestinal wall, that prompted the 2021 surgery, had returned.
