Norway’s King Harald V has been admitted to hospital pending surgery to replace a heart valve, the royal palace said on Thursday.
Friday’s planned procedure aims to replace an artificial heart valve the 83-year-old received in 2005, which had a life span of 10 to 15 years.
The king will not need to undergo open-heart surgery. A probe will instead be introduced from the groin through a vein to access the heart while he was under local anaesthesia the palace said.
The Oslo University Hospital team is to be led by the king’s personal physician Bjorn Bendz, who said the procedure was performed several hundred times a year there.
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Harald, who ascended to the throne in 1991, last month spent a few days at the hospital after suffering from breathing difficulties but tests showed that he did not have Covid-19.
During his sick leave, his son, Crown Prince Haakon, has served as regent and attended the state opening of parliament last week.
Queen Sonja, the king’s wife, had cancelled a trip to Trondheim to attend a ceremony on Sunday for Olav Fykse Tveit, the former general secretary of the World Council of Churches.
In December, Harald cancelled a few engagements due to a viral infection but gave his annual New Year’s speech as scheduled.
In early January, he spent a week in hospital after suffering from dizziness.
The king was also briefly hospitalised for an infection in November 2017.
He underwent successful treatment for bladder cancer in 2003.
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