King Harald V of Norway was spotted leaving the hospital today after receiving a permanent pacemaker.
Europe’s oldest monarch, 87, has been discharged from the Rikshospitalet hospital in Oslo after receiving the implant earlier this week.
Harald ‘is doing well’ and is on sick leave until 8 April, the royal household said in a brief statement. His 50-year-old son, Crown Prince Haakan, is assuming the king’s duties.
The monarch underwent the pacemaker implant procedure at Oslo’s university hospital on Tuesday.
Last month, Harald fell ill during a private holiday with his wife Queen Sonja on the Malaysian resort island of Langkawi. He underwent surgery there and received a temporary pacemaker due to a low heart rate.
King Harald V of Norway was photographed leaving the hospital in Oslo today after receiving a permanent pacemaker
Harald returned to Norway aboard a medical airplane and was immediately transferred to an Oslo hospital. The king’s doctor, Bjørn Bendz, said this week that he had contracted an undetermined infection in Malaysia.
Today, the monarch appeared well as he sat in the back of the vehicle while leaving the hospital. It is unclear whether he travelled in the car alone, with the addition of the driver.
The implant will help ensure that Harald’s heart beats regularly, and will replace the temporary pacemaker that he received last weekend.
The monarch has been in frail health in recent years with numerous hospital stays. He had an operation to replace a heart valve in October 2020 after being hospitalized with breathing difficulties.
Despite suffering from various health concerns, Harald has repeatedly said that he has no plans to abdicate, unlike his second cousin Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, who stepped down earlier this year.
The 87-year-old’s duties as Norway’s head of state are ceremonial and he holds no political power. He ascended to the throne following the death of his father, King Olav, in 1991.
Despite Harald’s procedure, the royal family have maintained an active approach with public engagements, and earlier this week, Queen Sonja and Princess Ingrid-Alexander attended a cross-country ski event in Holmenkollen.
It comes after King Harald of Norway thanked well-wishers for support as he revealed he is undergoing ‘expert’ treatment due to his ‘challenging’ health condition.
Europe’s oldest monarch (pictured in February 2024) is ‘doing well’, the palace revealed in a brief statement
The King glanced out of the window as he left the university hospital in Oslo via car earlier today
The monarch has received support from close family, including Crown Princess Mette-Marit, 50, and her daughter Princess Ingrid Alexandra, 20, who visited the monarch at Rikshospital.
‘We feel a great need to thank you for all the care, help and support during the King’s illness on our holiday in Malaysia,’ the couple said in their statement.
The royal couple not only thanked the Norwegian public for extending ‘support’, but the Malaysian authorities and staff that assisted them during their stay.
The statement read: ‘We feel a great need to thank you for all the care, help and support during the King’s illness on our holiday in Malaysia.
‘We have felt the heat coming from the Norwegian people at this time. The great commitment has moved us and strengthened us. Thank you to everyone for the concern you have shown us in the family.
The monarch (pictured June 16, 2022 with Queen Sonja) is expected to stay in hospital for a ‘few days’ after the procedure
‘Well back home in Norway, we also want to say a big thank you to the Malaysian authorities and staff at Sultanah Maliha Hospital in Langkawi.
‘Together with Norwegian health staff, they did everything they could for the King to recover well through his illness and be ready for his return home.
‘We are very grateful to the Norwegian government, the Armed Forces and others who assisted in making the journey home so safe and smooth for us. At the Rikshospitalet, Kongen is now undergoing expert treatment.’
They concluded: ‘We thank each and every one who has given us care, practical and health assistance in a challenging situation.’
King Harald, Norway’s ceremonial head of state since 1991, is Europe’s oldest living monarch. He has repeatedly been hospitalised with infections in recent years and has undergone heart surgery.
Harald (pictured on May 4, 2019) was returning home from Malaysia last week after falling ill on holiday and spending several days in hospital, the royal palace said
He caught a respiratory infection in January, days after dismissing speculation that he might abdicate, following the lead of distant cousin Queen Margrethe II in Denmark.
Two days before Harald’s 87th birthday last week, the palace announced that the King would be undertaking a private trip abroad, without specifying the destination or dates, according to the Norwegian news agency NTB.
Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said that he was ‘sad’ to hear of the king’s hospitalization and wished him a ‘speedy recovery,’ NTB said.
Despite Harald’s precarious physical condition, the royal is certain that he wants to continue as Norway’s reigning monarch.
Last month, the royal confirmed that he has no plans to abdicate after speculation he could follow in the footsteps of his former Danish counterpart, Queen Margrethe.
Traffic officers escort Norway’s King Harald V and delegates leaving Sultanah Maliha Hospital in Langkawi Island, state of Kedah, Malaysia
A Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) plane carrying Norway’s King Harald V and delegates is seen on the runway before taking off from Langkawi International Airport for their departure back to Norway
The monarch, who is the second cousin of King Charles III, insisted that the promise he made to the Norwegian Parliament when he acceded the throne in 1991 ‘lasts for life’.
King Harald told Faktisk.no: ‘I stand by what I have said all along. I have taken an oath to the Storting, and it lasts for life.’
It comes after Queen Margrethe of Denmark, 83, abdicated after 52 years on the throne, making way for her son Frederik to take over as King on 14 January.
Afterwards, a royal expert had suggested the Danish monarch had broken an ‘invisible pact’ between heads of state in the Scandinavian countries that none would step down from the throne.
Roger Lundberg told STV that, after Denmark’s changeover, there is a chance King Harald of Norway and King Carl Gustaf of Sweden , 79, might follow suit and step down to allow their eldest children to take the throne.
However, this has been firmly dismissed by King Harald.
The Norwegian King was 53 when he acceded the throne in 1991, upon the death of his father King Olav. Ahead of this, he had been acting as Crown Prince Regent due to his father’s illness, which escalated in the spring of 1990.
King Harald has faced some health concerns himself in recent years, and spent time in the hospital to treat an infection last May, but clearly has no intention of abdicating.
His Scandinavian neighbour Queen Margrethe of Denmark made the shock announcement that she would give up the throne in her New Year’s Eve speech.
The Danish Royal Family have spent the last two years grappling with various scandals, including the Queen’s surprise decision to strip her grandchildren of their princely titles.
But Denmark is not the only monarchy in the Scandinavian nations to have had a bumpy few years – with Norway’s royal family experiencing its very own ‘Megxit’.
King Harald and Queen Sonja’s only daughter Princess Martha Louise, who was fourth in line to the throne, stepped down as a working royal in 2019.
Pictured left to right: King Harald V, Crown Princess Mette-Marit and Crown Prince Haakon of Norway
It was announced in 2022 that the mother-of-three would no longer represent the Royal household in any form following her engagement to an American Shamanic healer who had been criticised for his controversial views.
King Harald said that Martha would not be allowed to use her royal title any future commercial partnerships with her partner Durek Verrett, 47.
Shortly after the mother-of-three announced her engagement to Verrett, a Norweigan publishing house dropped his book ‘Spirit Hacking’ over pseudoscientific claims, including ‘children can get cancer from being unhappy’.
Among his other claims, Verrett says he once came back from the dead, recovering from a month-long coma, by letting his soul ‘burn’ and he has also spoken of having to undergo a kidney transplant from his sister as a child.
Following Martha Louise’s decision to step down, King Harald stressed that his daughter has remained a princess at his request, saying: ‘She is our daughter, and she will continue to be. So she is Princess Märtha Louise.’
The princess was previously married to Ari Behn, whom she wed in 2002 and had three children together Maud Angelica, 19, Leah Isadora, 17, and Emma Tallulah, 14. They split in 2016, and Ari took his own life on Christmas Day in 2019.
Crown Prince Haakon, Martha-Louise’s older brother, is Norway’s heir apparent – and the future King has already had a taste of what it will be like to ascend the throne after stepping in for his father on several occasions over the past few years.
