Pope Francis

The Bishop of Rome and sovereign of the Vatican City State, Pope Francis will be discharged from Rome’s Gemelli Hospital on Friday, June 16.

The 86-year-old has had some health issues the last one year and early this month the Vatican announced he will be having abdominal surgery.

The surgery was performed last week and the Roman Catholic church leader remained in Rome’s Gemelli hospital after undergoing the surgery.

“The health care team that is following Pope Francis confirmed the Holy Father’s discharge from Policlinico A. Gemelli on the morning of … June 16,” the director of the Vatican Press Office Matteo Bruni said in a statement.

Bruni said on Thursday that the medical staff reported that the Pontiff had “rested well during the night. The clinical course continues regularly. Hematochemical examinations are in the normal range.”

On Thursday morning, “as a token of thanks, he received the entire operating team formed by the medical staff, nurses, social and health workers and auxiliaries who coordinated, performed and made the surgery possible last June 7,” Bruni added.

The Pontiff also visited children in the Pediatric Oncology and Children’s Neurosurgery ward “who in recent days have expressed their affection to the Pope through numerous letters, drawings and messages of speedy recovery are cared for,” Bruni said.

“In greeting those present, His Holiness extended his thanks to all the health care staff for their professionalism and efforts to alleviate each other’s suffering with tenderness and humanity in addition to medication,” he said.