hello I'm Nikki Schiller welcome to the program we're going to start in Rome because Pope Francis is expected to leave hospital shortly and I want to take you to the live pictures from the hospital where he is being treated uh we can show you the window uh now we are expecting the pope to appear at the window very shortly he of course has had five weeks of treatment for a severe infection that led to pneumonia his doctors during that time say he suffered two lifethreatening episodes now the 88-year-old pope was admitted to hospital on February
the 14th now we are expecting him at the window where there is a papal suite in the hospital he's going to offer a blessing and probably wave to the people who've gathered there outside the hospital it will of course be the first time that he has appeared in public since he went into hospital his doctors now say that his pneumonia is gone and that he is stable though he is not fully healed that means that Francis is likely to need at least two months to recuperate uh but he is as we said expected to appear
at that window very shortly and actually we can now see him coming out um uh being wheeled out on his chair let's have a listen into the crowd there [Applause] so a microphone being brought out let's have a listen to see if we can hear any words that the Pope is going to say [Applause] so there we can see the pope uh making a brief words the sound not great we will I assume get a translation very shortly but he was there waving with uh both hands the crowd that has gathered outside the JL hospital
uh clapping and cheering as it's this is the first appearance that we've had of the pope uh since he was taken into hospital on February uh the 14th um you can see there um that he does look like he's struggling a little bit uh to breathe but he's he's waving uh a short appearance there at the balcony now being wheeled back into the hospital um I'll take you to some pictures that are um outside um the um hospital there you can see that people have gathered uh some hugs going on also I know that this
was being relayed to the people that had gathered at the Vatican uh there was a big screen that was set up outside the Vatican we can show you the pictures there uh uh where people have gathered um to uh watch this the first um appearance of the pope um since he was admitted to hospital as I said we are now expecting um him to be discharged from hospital and taken back to the Vatican where these pictures are um but his doctors uh saying that uh he is going to have to uh have a period of
rest about 2 months of rest they
