Norway’s King Harald has been rushed to hospital after experiencing fatigue, paleness and shortness of breath, the country’s Royal Palace said.
Europe’s longest-serving monarch, 89, has been suffering from haemolytic anaemia, a disorder which causes red blood cells to be destroyed at an abnormally fast rate.
He was admitted to hospital in Oslo on Monday and will be on sick leave for the next two weeks.
The Royal Family said in a statement: ‘The King has been treated with cortisone for the blood disease haemolytic anaemia in recent weeks.
‘This has led to fluid accumulation in the body that 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 Royal House’s official programme.’
Harald – the oldest of the continent’s sovereigns – visited the hospital only 10 days ago for a ‘planned check-up and follow-up with a doctor’.
And in February the 89-year-old was rushed to hospital while spending time with his wife, Norwegian Queen Sonja, 88, in Tenerife.
King Harald of Norway, pictured in February, has been admitted to hospital after suffering from shortness of breath
The monarch’s condition at the time was said to have been ‘satisfactory’ after he received treatment for an infection and dehydration at Hospital Universitario Hospiten Sur.
It came just two years after the Norwegian suffered a similar problem while on holiday in Malaysia. That ordeal resulted in him having a pacemaker fitted.
The monarch has, however, insisted that he will never abdicate from his position due to poor health, arguing that he took a lifelong oath before ascending to the throne in 1991.
‘I stick by what I’ve always said, that I swore an oath to the Storting (Norwegian Parliament) and it is for life,’ he said previously.
Harald has presided over a difficult few months for the Norwegian royal family amid a scandal involving his daughter-in-law Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
Mette-Marit faced intense scrutiny when the Epstein Files revealed she stayed at the paedophile financier’s Palm Beach mansion in 2013 – after 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 grovelling apology in which she claimed the emails ‘do not represent the person who I want to be’.
Harald defended his daughter-in-law during a public appearance that month in which he insisted: ‘We must remember that the Crown Princess has not done anything illegal.
‘Unlike some others in Norway, she broke the connection very early. So I think we should give her credit for that.’
It came in the same week that Queen Sonja was rushed to Oslo’s National Hospital after experiencing ‘heart problems’.
At the time, a statement from the Norwegian Royal House 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 has been hospitalised for a few days for examinations and observation.’
Sonja was later discharged and said to have been in ‘much better form’. The 88-year-old had a pacemaker fitted last year after experiencing cardiac fibrillation – a rapid and irregular heartbeat.
Harald became Norway’s Crown Prince 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, passed away.
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