Once again the eyes of all Italy turned to the San Raffaele hospital in Milan. Silvio Berlusconi arrived there yesterday morning after leaving the premises a few days ago. The days immediately following his resignation from the structure showed him again in full activity and participation in the political debate, including social thanks for the best wishes received, a video for the election campaign in Friuli and a round of nominations on Forza Italia. Yesterday, however, there was another hospitalization, in the thoracic-vascular intensive care unit. Rumors speak of breathing problems that required hospitalization. There are rumors of a night bulletin, which however will not be there, and what leaks are the stable conditions of the leader of Forza Italia, who has remained vigilant. At night, an Adnkronos indiscretion will speak of a stationary situation.
The former prime minister underwent a CT scan and blood tests. The suspicion matured from the beginning, later confirmed, is that it was an infection already treated in the previous hospitalization, evidently not completely overcome. It would therefore be a relapse. At night, the cold bath with the opening of Dagospia: «Silvio Berlusconi is in a very serious condition: he has bilateral acute pneumonia that causes respiratory crises». News that, however, at least until we write, is not confirmed. However, yesterday, maximum secrecy was established regarding the contacts, so much so that the only ones around him who could access them were his children, his partner Marta Fascina, his brother Paolo. And the words of the latter, intercepted by journalists, shortly before dinner, after leaving the hospital (and therefore after Dagospia), sound more reassuring: “He’s stable, he’s a rock, he’ll make it this time too”, he says. of the blue sky leader. “His mood? Ours is good.” The solidarity of the political framework arrived, minute after minute, through declarations of exponents at all levels.
And once again a chapter of common Italian history is being written around the health conditions of a leader who made his physical size a qualifying point of his political message addressed to the collective imagination. And his physical falls, in a comprehensive commitment made of gigantic work rhythms, crowd baths, river rallies constitute important pages of this story. From the early stage of his political career. It was 1997 and a large center-right demonstration was taking place in Milan against the fiscal policy of the first Prodi government. All the leaders of the then Polo delle Libertà spoke. Berlusconi, years later, had to tell: «I was on stage, but I spoke with a heavy heart. The next morning I had to go to the operating room, I couldn’t stop thinking about it, I was afraid that the disease was incurable”. The disease in question was prostate cancer. Sometimes, the physical falls are confused with the political gesture. This is the case, for example, with diseases. 2006, in Montecatini, when he faints live while speaking at a fair held by the «Circoli del Buongoverno». The worst was feared, and an operation took place in Cleveland, where a pacemaker was implanted. Or in 2016, after some election compromises for Rome’s municipal authorities. Flying back to Milan, he felt unwell, was rushed to San Raffaele and underwent heart surgery. Once, however, his hospitalization was provoked by a robbery: it was almost Christmas 2009, when a crazed man threw an iron statuette at him in Milan’s Piazza Duomo, hitting him in the face.
Then we come to the last chapters. It was 2020, and Covid hit him in the summer, after months of isolation in France. There too, the race to San Raffaele. Going out, talking to journalists, he almost boasted about the very high viral load he had recorded, to then defeat the virus. A long recovery followed. In 2022, a new hospitalization, due to a urinary infection, in the weeks when negotiations for the election of the President of the Republic were in full swing. Stories and anecdotes that always have by their side the trusted doctor Alberto Zangrillo, also the protagonist of Berlusconi’s epic. Where even the leader’s clinical condition is a political matter.
Source: IL Tempo

Emma Fitzgerald is an accomplished political journalist and author at The Nation View. With a background in political science and international relations, she has a deep understanding of the political landscape and the forces that shape it.