Norway’s King Harald is in extremely serious condition in Oslo
The royal household used that phrase on Thursday as Queen Sonja and Crown Prince Haakon cancelled every engagement. The 89-year-old has been in Rikshospitalet since 17 August for haemolytic anaemia and a later blood infection. Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre dropped a trip to Berlin.
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The Norwegian royal household said on Thursday that King Harald V was in an extremely serious condition at Oslo University Hospital. Queen Sonja and Crown Prince Haakon cancelled all planned events and joined other relatives at Rikshospitalet. Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre cancelled a Thursday meeting in Berlin with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
Harald, 89, has been on the throne since 17 January 1991 and is Europe’s oldest serving head of state. He was admitted on 17 August for haemolytic anaemia, a condition in which red blood cells break down faster than the marrow can replace them. The court later said cortisone treatment led to fluid accumulation and that doctors added antibiotics for a bacterial infection in the blood. His condition worsened on Monday and again overnight into Thursday.
NRK quoted haematologist Bjørn Tore Gjertsen as telling viewers to prepare for the worst. Gjertsen, who is not the king’s treating physician, said age works against the usual treatments. The palace itself released no further clinical detail.
Who arrived at the hospital
Norwegian cameras recorded Queen Sonja, Crown Prince Haakon, Crown Princess Mette-Marit, Princess Ingrid Alexandra, Prince Sverre Magnus and Princess Märtha Louise entering the hospital. Princess Astrid, the king’s sister, was also there. Marius Borg Høiby, Mette-Marit’s son, arrived as well. He is under monitoring after a rape conviction in June.
Haakon, 53, has been serving as regent while his father is on sick leave. He has filled that role before, including after Harald received a pacemaker in 2024 following an illness in Malaysia. The king later accepted a permanent cut in public work. He has ruled out abdication in past interviews.
Storting President Masud Gharahkhani and the College of Bishops also cut travel to return to Oslo. Støre said the whole nation sent warm thoughts to the king and the family. The wording was the standard constitutional courtesy. It also marked how closely the government tracks the monarch’s health in a system where the king opens the Storting and receives ambassadors even as day-to-day power sits with elected ministers.
What the illness is
Haemolytic anaemia is uncommon. Red cells die early. Patients tire and lose breath. Steroids can slow the destruction. They also raise infection risk, which matches the court’s account of a later blood infection treated with antibiotics. None of that predicts an outcome at 89. It does explain why the family gathered in one day rather than spacing visits.
Harald was born on 21 February 1937 at Skaugum, the first prince born in Norway in 567 years. He married Sonja Haraldsen in 1968 after a long public argument over a commoner match. Their children are Märtha Louise, born 1971, and Haakon Magnus, born 1973. A 1990 change in succession made the eldest child the heir, but only for those born after the amendment, so Haakon remains first in line.
The king’s motto is “Alt for Norge.” He opened the Storting for the 34th time as king in October 2025. Those ceremonial facts will matter if Haakon has to keep the regency for a long stretch, or if the succession itself arrives. For Thursday the only official statement that counts is the household’s phrase: extremely serious, family present, engagements cancelled, prime minister home from Germany.
