House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi was hospitalized briefly in Rome on Monday after arriving from a fact-finding trip to Afghanistan.
“After several flights yesterday in Afghanistan, and a long flight back to Italy that arrived early this morning, Leader Pelosi was not feeling well,” her office said in a statement. “This morning in Rome, [she] was advised to visit a clinic, and the closest medical facility was a hospital. [Mrs. Pelosi] is now resuming her schedule in Italy.”
The Italian news agency ANSA reported Mrs. Pelosi, the California Democrat who lost the speaker’s post in November’s midterm elections, spent two hours undergoing tests in the emergency department of a Rome hospital before being released and returning to her hotel.
A press briefing with Italian Defense Minister Ignazio La Russa and a top Italian parliamentarian that had been on Mrs. Pelosi’s schedule was postponed.
The U.S. Embassy in Rome declined to comment. The 70-year-old Mrs. Pelosi was heading a bipartisan congressional delegation to Afghanistan and stopped in Rome to mark the 150th anniversary of Italy’s unification as a nation.
