Norwegian King Harald’s health has ‘deteriorated’: Palace
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King Harald of Norway was admitted to Oslo University Hospital on Aug 17 due to fluid retention from the cortisone treatment he is receiving and placed on sick leave for two weeks.
PHOTO: AFP
- Norwegian King Harald V's health has worsened due to haemolytic anaemia and a bacterial infection; he remains hospitalised and on sick leave until early September.
- Several family members, including Queen Sonja and Crown Prince Haakon, have visited the king, who has faced multiple health issues but refuses to abdicate.
- The royal family faces additional challenges, including scrutiny over Crown Princess Mette-Marit's ties to Jeffrey Epstein and her son's legal troubles, amid Harald's unifying public role.
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OSLO - The health of Norway’s 89-year-old King Harald V, in hospital due to complications from a blood condition, has “deteriorated” over the weekend, a statement from the palace said on Aug 24.
Europe’s oldest reigning monarch is being treated for haemolytic anaemia, a condition caused by an abnormally rapid destruction of red blood cells which leads to fatigue, paleness and shortness of breath.
“His Majesty the King’s health deteriorated over the weekend,” said the palace.
“The King is receiving antibiotics for a bacterial infection in his blood and has responded to this treatment,” the statement added.
He was admitted to Oslo University Hospital on Aug 17 due to fluid retention from the cortisone treatment he is receiving and placed on sick leave for two weeks.
The palace has previously said the king had cancelled his visit to the central region of Trondelag scheduled for Sept 1 and Sept 2 – after the end of the previously announced sick leave period.
Several members of his family have visited him in hospital.
The Verdens Gang newspaper reported that his wife, Queen Sonja, their son Crown Prince Haakon – who is acting as regent in Harald’s absence – and Haakon’s wife Crown Princess Mette-Marit visited him on Aug 23, as did the king’s sister.
None of them made a statement upon leaving the hospital.
Harald, who ascended the Norwegian throne in 1991, has had multiple health problems in recent years, forcing him to have a pacemaker fitted and to scale back his official schedule.
But he has always ruled out abdicating, arguing that he took a lifelong oath before the Norwegian Parliament.
In February, he was hospitalised for an infection and dehydration in Tenerife, where he was on a private trip with Queen Sonja.
His wife, also 89, was briefly admitted to hospital in May due to heart problems.
Harald’s health woes come at a turbulent time for the Norwegian royal family.
Haakon’s wife Mette-Marit is under scrutiny for her ties to the late US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Documents published in January in the United States revealed her sustained and at times intimate correspondence with Epstein between 2011 and 2014, at a time when the American financier had already been convicted.
Mette-Marit’s son from a previous marriage, Marius Borg Hoiby, is also in the spotlight as a result of his legal troubles.
He was sentenced in June to four years in prison for two rapes and 32 other charges, including violence against a former partner.
He has appealed the verdict.
Suffering herself from a serious lung disease, Mette-Marit, 53, also had to undergo a lung transplant in July.
The royals remain broadly popular with the Norwegian public, in large part to Harald’s unifying figure. AFP
