That of Norway King Harald was rushed to hospital with an illness causing shortness of breath, the country’s Royal Palace said.
Europe’s oldest sitting monarch, aged 89, suffers from haemolytic anaemia, a condition in which red blood cells are destroyed at an abnormally rapid rate and leads to fatigue, paleness and breathing difficulties.
He was admitted to hospital in Oslo on Monday and will be on sick leave for the next two weeks.
The palace said in a statement: ‘The king has been treated with cortisone in recent weeks for the blood disease hemolytic anemia.
‘This has led to fluid retention in the body which requires treatment in hospital.
‘The king is on sick leave for two weeks. His Royal Highness the Crown Prince is regent during this period. We will return to the consequences this will have for the official program of the Royal House.’
Harald only visited the hospital ten days ago for a ‘planned check-up and follow-up appointment with a doctor’.
And in February, the 89-year-old was rushed to hospital while spending time with his wife, Norwegian Queen Sonja, 89, in Tenerife.
King Harald of Norway, pictured in February, has been admitted to hospital after suffering from shortness of breath
The monarch’s condition was said to have been “satisfactory” at the time after he was treated for an infection and dehydration at the Hospital Universitario Hospiten Sur.
It came just two years after the Norwegian faced a similar problem while on holiday in Malaysia. That ordeal resulted in him getting a pacemaker.
However, the monarch has insisted he will never relinquish office due to his ill health, arguing he took a lifelong oath before ascending the throne in 1991.
“I stand by what I have always said, that I swore an oath to the Storting (Norwegian parliament) and that it is for life,” he said earlier.
Harald has had a difficult few months for the Norwegian royal family, amid a scandal over his daughter-in-law, Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
Mette-Marit faced intense scrutiny when a tranche of the Epstein Files revealed she stayed at the pedophile financier’s Palm Beach mansion in 2013 – following his conviction for soliciting sex from girls as young as 14.
One email suggested she was still in contact with Epstein just months before his death.
Mette-Marit, 52, who was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis in 2018, later issued a groveling apology claiming the emails “do not represent the person I want to be.”
Harald defended his daughter-in-law that month in a public appearance in which he insisted: “We must remember that the Crown Princess has done nothing illegal.
‘Unlike some others in Norway, she disconnected very early. So I think we have to give her credit for that.”
It came the same week that Queen Sonja was rushed to Oslo’s National Hospital after suffering ‘heart problems’.
A statement from the Norwegian Royal House at the time read: ‘Her Majesty The Queen was admitted to the National Hospital today due to heart problems.
‘The queen has heart fibrillation and heart failure and will be in hospital for a few days for examination and observation.’
Sonja was later fired and was said to have been in ‘much better shape’. The 89-year-old received a pacemaker last year after suffering from heart fibrillation – a fast and irregular heartbeat.
Harald became the Crown Prince of Norway in 1957, after the death of his grandfather. He married Sonja in 1968 before becoming the monarch 23 years later when his father, King Olav, died.
