Alarming truth about Kate Middleton’s ‘planned’ surgery

The Princess of Wales has undergone “planned” abdominal surgery but some worrying details speak to an alarming truth.

COMMENT

Ten to 14 days. February. Digesting the news today that Kate, the Princess of Wales has been admitted to hospital in London for abdominal surgery where she is ‘expected to remain’ for up to two weeks is sobering stuff.

Details right now are thinner on the ground than tofu-fanciers or Guardian-readers at a Windsor shooting weekend but auguries are a bit unnerving. That the otherwise normally robust princess, the very picture of apple-cheeked health has not only suddenly ended up in the private London Clinic but that she will be there for such an extended period of time is nothing short of pretty startling.

No matter how measured the tone of the press release put out by Kensington Palace, there is no way that they can spin this or reframe this to make it any less worrying.

In fact, the opposite is true with one particular line in the otherwise bland statement that casts today’s Kate news in an even more concerning light.

The third and final paragraph of the message read: “The Princess of Wales wishes to apologise to all those concerned for the fact that she has to postpone her upcoming engagements.”

The very fact that Kate has pulled out of impending outings gives the game away to some degree. Even though the Palace statement her surgery as “planned’ it cannot have been scheduled for that long if she has “upcoming engagements” already locked in.

Catherine, Princess of Wales, usually the very picture of apple-cheeked health, will be spending up to two weeks in hospital. Picture: Frank Augstein / POOL / AFP)

This week is roughly about when the princess normally returns to work after the family’s Christmas break. They do the church walk and then la famille royale disappears behind their high fences and security perimeters to play Monopoly or to hunt servants or whatever a budding HRH might like to do on their half-term break.

By rights, and the schedule of recent years, about now, after Kate’s January 9 birthday and with the Hogmanay leftovers finally all eaten it’s ‘sleeves up, once more into the breach’ time.

What that “upcoming engagements” line in today’s Palace statement gives away is that not only Kate but significant other Prince William, the Prince of Wales clearly had engagements and outings in their diary for this month, things that would have been entered into large leather desk planners in neat fountain pen ages ago.

Clearly both of them and their large teams of eager-beaver staffers wholly converted to the cause Wales have been operating under the belief that 2024 would progress as per normal.

Nothing to see here, nothing unusual, nothing out of the ordinary.

If royal officials are, as the Times has reported, currently ‘clearing’ the Princess of Wales’ diary “for several months to allow her proper recovery time” then this was all a bit more sudden than the bland statement would otherwise suggest.

Kate Middleton’s surgery will mean she’s out of action for some time. Picture: Odd ANDERSEN / AFP

Moreover, Kate is not expected to return to public duties until hot cross buns are no longer in the supermarket, by which I mean, “until at least Easter.”

This all affects not only the Princess of Wales’ forthcoming outings but William’s too. He is “committed to staying by her side as much as possible and has also cleared many of his forthcoming duties,” per the Times.

Royal sources have told the Telegraph that not only will the father-of-three not “undertake any public duties” while his wife is in the London Clinic but also blocked out “the immediate period following her return home.”

I can’t think of another occasion in recent history when senior members of the royal family have wholly taken themselves off the board so suddenly and for such a lengthy period of time. All of this is perturbing.

King Charles’ prostate surgery and Kate’s abdominal surgery means that three out of four of the core royals will be out of action. Picture: Photo by Chris Jackson / POOL / AFP

For a bit of perspective here, the last member of the royal family to spend this long tucked up in a nice white ward was Prince Philip in 2021. When the late Queen had knee surgery in 2003, she only spent two nights in King Edward VII Hospital.

While Kensington Palace has made clear the princess’ condition is non-cancerous, consider that Her late Majesty, despite reportedly suffering from a form of bone marrow cancer, only spent one night in hospital. Kate’s in there for up to 14.

While it seems inevitable that more details will trickle out in the coming days about what exactly is ailing the princess, it’s worth pointing out that she has long since qualified for ‘trooper’ status.

The birth of her first child, Prince George, only had her in hospital for night, while the arrivals of Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis saw her check out of the Lindo Wing and tucked up at home the very same day they were both born.

Even when Kate was diagnosed with hyperemesis gravidarum in 2012, the princess was only a inpatient for three nights.

You take my point. A malingerer, Kate most certainly is not.

Kate Middleton has qualified for ‘trooper’ status. Picture: TOBY MELVILLE / POOL / AFP

To further add to the brow-furrowing and fretting here, remember that William and Kate are one-half of the frontline, front row, all-star players in the royal game and taking not one but both of them off the field for months on end, just to really belabour a bit of a naff sports metaphor, is a huge deal.

For Palace mandarins to clear the board for William and Kate is not a small or easy thing, managed in a single stroke of red pen or phone call.

Their forthcoming trip to live the dolce vita, or to at least do some energetic smiling at Italian ministers, in Rome, has been cancelled. The Waleses had been set to undertake their first official trip to Italy and their first official joint tour since their 2022 Caribbean one.

(Their December 2022 trip to Boston for William’s Earthshot Prize wasn’t a trip on behalf of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office as the Italy one would have been.)

William and Kate have had to cancel an overseas tour. Picture: Jonathan Brady – WPA Pool/Getty Images

The prince and princess were also set, according to the Telegraph, to have another short overseas tour on the books for sometime in February too. That too has now been kiboshed.

Tours like these take more planning and prep-work than most lunar missions, thus for the plug to be pulled so late in the game is a particularly alarming detail.

Thursday’s Kate news now means that Crown Inc. is starting the year essentially hobbled and missing 50 per cent of their starting line-up. (And that’s not even taking into consideration that hours after Thursday’s Kate news broke Buckingham Palace announced that King Charles is set to be admitted to hospital next week for “a corrective procedure” after being diagnosed with “an enlarged prostate”.)

So, get well Your Royal Highness. Here’s to a very speedy recovery and hoping that being a patient in one of London’s most expensive private hospitals means she will get to enjoy a really top-drawer standard of jelly.

Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and a royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.