Norway’s Royal Family was in crisis mode again heading into the weekend, after Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s health worsened. She’s officially been placed on a waiting list for a lung transplant, just days after her husband and daughter rushed back to Oslo from abroad.
Crown Prince Haakon was on a long-planned official trip to Japan that he cut short, while Princess Ingrid Alexandra was back studying at the University of Sydney in Australia. Both of them felt a need to head for home, arriving in Oslo earlier this week so they could accompany the crown princess to a meeting with doctors at Norway’s national hospital, Rikshospitalet.
Princess Ingrid Alexandra (second in line to the throne after her father) was seen driving one of the family’s cars with her mother in the front passenger seat and her father in the backseat. All three of them drove back to the crown couple’s royal estate later in the day, and Crown Princess Mette-Marit was not admitted to the hospital.
On Friday came news, though, that she needs to be ready for immediate hospitalization when and if new lungs are found for her. The medical message was clear, that her lung disease has worsened and become life-threatening, and a lung transplant is necessary.
“The crown princess has had a considerable worsening over the past half-year of her lung disease,” said Dr Are Holm, medical director and lung specialist at the hospital. It’s known as chronic pulmonary fibrosis in English, and he said that those put on a waiting list for suitable new lungs are evaluated as being so sick that they probably only have a year to live if they don’t undergo a lung transplant.
“This is dangerous,” he said at a press conference on Friday afternoon.
It’s a complicated procedure, though, to receive lungs that will suit a new receiver. At the same time the patient needs to be healthy enough to undergo such a major operation and meet criteria for a good outlook after surgery. “You have to be both sick enough and healthy enough,” Holm said.
Medicine can arrest further deterioration and the 52-year-old crown princess has been using an oxygen machine this past spring, but neither can improve her condition. “The development of the crown princess’ lung disease is serious,” Holm said. “After a thorough medical evaluation, she is now on the list of persons who will undergo a lung transplant as quickly as possible.”
An announcement from the Royal Palace on Friday confirmed that her illness will have consequences for royal family members’ program and activities in the weeks and months ahead. The couple’s upcoming Silver Wedding anniversary celebration in late August will be postponed, the crown princess won’t take part in a county tour to Agder in September and Crown Prince Haakon will limit all travel both before and after her operation.
Princess Ingrid Alexandra is also temporarily moving back to Norway from Australia and will carry on studies as an exchange student at the University of Oslo, in order to be closer to her mother and family. Her younger brother, Prince Sverre Magnus, plans to begin studies at an undisclosed college in Europe this autumn, but will come home when necessary. He’s begun taking on more official duties to help his father and sister, who in turn have been filling in for both the crown princess and the elderly King Harald and Queen Sonja. They’ve both been suffering health problems too.
Police, meanwhile, want to keep the prince’s and princess’ older half-brother, Marius Borg Høiby, in jail, following his trial and conviction earlier this year on multiple counts of violence, rape, vandalism and drug charges. The 29-year-old Høiby, the crown princess’ son from a relationship before she met and married Crown Prince Haakon, faces formal sentencing later this month.
Høiby has earlier applied for release, hoping to return to the royal estate at Skaugum west of Oslo while wearing a foot link to control his movements. A court rejected his application, however, not least since he has a history of violating restraining orders against women he’s earlier abused. His attorneys are seeking his release now, too, arguing that he wants to spend time with his mother.
Oslo police quickly turned down his request on Friday and sent it back to the court to decide, and Høiby’s lawyers were surprised. “We thought we’d be met with understanding,” his defense attorney Peter Sekulic told state broadcaster NRK, calling the police decision “unreasonable.” Prosecutors were firm, however, on the grounds there’s a danger Høiby will violate restraining orders yet again.
NewsinEnglish.no/Nina Berglund
