Norway's future queen, Crown Princess Mette-Marit, has been placed on a waiting list for a lung transplant, with doctors warning she may have only a year left to live. The 52-year-old suffers from pulmonary fibrosis, a lung disease with no cure, and her condition is now considered life-threatening.
The tragic news comes after it was revealed earlier this week that her daughter, Princess Ingrid Alexandra of Norway, was leaving her studies in Sydney to return home and be with her mother.
In a statement on the health of Crown Princess Mette-Marit, the palace stressed that she requires a transplant as "soon as possible." She has now been forced to suspend official duties due to the disease. A new medical update will be provided after the lung transplant has taken place, the statement said on Friday.
After being discharged from the hospital, "there will be a longer period of rehabilitation and training" and "there will initially be no updates."
Lung specialist Are Holm from Oslo University Hospital confirmed that patients on the list for lung transplantation are considered so sick that they likely only have one year left to live, as reported by Norwegian broadcaster NRK. "The Crown Princess has had a significant worsening of her pulmonary fibrosis over the past six months," he said. "We see in the pictures that much more scar tissue has developed over the past year."
Mr. Holm explained that the hospital has guidelines for prioritizing people on the waiting list and said it was not possible to predict when she would be able to undergo the transplant. It will all depend on when a "suitable organ becomes available," he added. He also noted that there were currently short waiting times and that they "follow protocol exactly in this case."
Mette-Marit has been seen using oxygen during recent engagements and earlier this week was seen arriving at Oslo University Hospital.
She was diagnosed in 2018 with a rare form of pulmonary fibrosis that causes breathing difficulties and creates scar tissue that stiffens the lungs, making it difficult to breathe and for oxygen to enter the bloodstream. It has repeatedly forced her to take sick leave or scale back official duties. In December, she revealed that her illness had developed "faster than I had hoped." At the time, the palace confirmed that doctors had started preparing for a lung transplant evaluation.
"The Crown Princess is seriously ill, and I think she has got a bit worse lately," Crown Prince Haakon said last month. "I am worried about her health. And these six months have gone pretty well, I think. But there are different phases. So we just have to try to solve it as best we can."
When asked if Mette-Marit will be put on the transplant list, Crown Prince Haakon said "it is up to the doctors, it's a medical question." "They're the ones who decide when it should happen, when it's right," he said. "But I think she's got a lot worse lately, unfortunately."
This comes just weeks after the Scandinavian royal had her own Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor moment as she was questioned about her friendship with Jeffrey Epstein during a dramatic TV interview. She claimed that she was manipulated and tricked by the pedophile, in an emotional attempt to contain the fallout from her links to him. Welling up in the interview, the royal said she regrets her "very friendly relationship" with the disgraced financier.
Mette-Marit is also dealing with the aftermath of her son, Marius Borg Høiby, being charged with rape and sexual assault in June last year. The shocking claims include one count of rape involving intercourse, two without intercourse, four cases of sexual assault, and two of bodily harm. He is also accused of raping four women while they were sleeping. In at least three of the cases, he had consensual sex before the alleged rapes. Høiby is also charged with filming his victims' genitalia without their knowledge. The Norwegian court is due to deliver a verdict in the rape trial on June 15.
