PHILIP HEART FEARS
■ 99-YEAR-OLD DUKE IS TRANSFERRED BY AMBULANCE TO CARDIAC CARE HOSPITAL ■ HE’S HAVING TESTS FOR ‘PRE-EXISTING CONDITION’ AS HE BATTLES INFECTION
CONCERN for Prince Philip’s health has grown after he was transferred to a different hospital for specialist heart treatment.
The 99-year-old was moved by ambulance to St Bartholomew’s after 12 days at central London’s King Edward VII’s private hospital.
Barts Heart Centre is Europe’s largest specialist cardiovascular service and known as a centre of excellence. Buckingham Palace said the Duke of Edinburgh (pictured) was now having tests for a pre-existing heart condition as well as an infection.
A spokesman insisted he was feeling ‘comfortable’. He is expected to stay in care until the end of the week at least. The duke was kept out public view by staff with umbrellas as he was put into an ambulance for the 2.6-mile journey from Marylebone to Barts, near St Paul’s Cathedral, yesterday morning.
He was first admitted two weeks ago today as a precautionary measure after feeling unwell.
A week later, the royal family revealed that he was being treated for an infection, but said it was nothing to do with coronavirus.
He and the Queen, who is 94, received their first Covid-19 jabs in January.
The duke – who will be 100 on June 10 – received a visit from the Prince of Wales the first weekend he was in hospital. The Queen is not believed to have
visited him during recent admissions, including a four-night stay in December 2019 for what Buckingham Palace called planned treatment of a pre-existing condition.
He spent two nights in King Edward VII’s hospital in 2017 with an infection and another ten nights there the following year for a hip replacement.
The Queen visited her husband in hospital in June 2012 when a bladder infection prevented him from attending some of her Diamond Jubilee celebrations.
The palace said yesterday: ‘The Duke of Edinburgh was today transferred from King Edward VII’s Hospital to St Bartholomew’s Hospital where doctors will continue to treat him for an infection, as well as undertake testing and observation for a pre-existing heart condition.
‘The duke remains comfortable and is responding to treatment but is expected to remain in hospital until at least the end of the week.’
St Bartholomew’s, in the City of London, is Britain’s oldest hospital and celebrates its 900th birthday in 202 .
The NHS calls Barts Heart Centre, based in the state-of-the-art King George V building, ‘Europe’s largest specialised cardiovascular centre’.
It has ten theatres, ten cath labs – where arteries and blood flow are checked – and more than 00 general, cardiac and critical-care beds.
A specialist heart attack centre delivers dedicated emergency care 24 hours a day, with rapid access to a team with specialist expertise and equipment.
In January 2020, it was rated No.1 for cardiac arrest survival rates in London, according to the NHS, while working ‘to perform more heart surgery, MRI and CT scans than any other service in the world.’
The hospital also treats rare cancers.