Ex-Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, 86, is hospitalised for medical checks

Former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has been admitted to San Raffaele hospital in Milan, two months after being diagnosed with leukaemia and a lung infection.

Berlusconi, 86, who is in a relationship with 33-year-old Forza Italia MP Marta Fascina, was taken to the hospital for medical checks, a source said. 

The billionaire media tycoon was discharged from hospital last month after treatment for a lung infection linked to a Chronic Myelomonocytic Leukaemia (CML).

Berlusconi’s health has markedly deteriorated in recent years, with open-heart surgery in 2016 and numerous hospital admissions since contracting Covid-19 three years ago.

He was admitted to intensive care in April in the cardiac unit of the San Raffaele hospital after suffering from breathing problems. 

Former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has been admitted at San Raffaele hospital in Milan, four sources told Reuters today

Berlusconi, 86, is in a relationship with 33-year-old Forza Italia MP Marta Fascina

While there, Berlusconi, the leader of the Right-wing Forza Italia party, was diagnosed with a lung infection and CML – a rare blood cancer characterised by high numbers of white blood cells. 

Berlusconi has previously overcome prostate cancer, which he described as ‘a nightmare lasting months’.  

But it was his battle with Covid in 2020 which he described as the ‘most dangerous challenge’ of his life. 

The three-time prime minister of Italy, who has been embroiled in several scandals – most notably around his ‘bunga bunga’ parties – was admitted to hospital with a minor heart problem after fainting in 2006, and underwent heart surgery in a US hospital in January 2007.

The former AC Milan owner, who also had major heart surgery in 2016 to replace an aortic valve, has had a pacemaker for several years.

He was hospitalised again for a reported urinary tract infection in January 2022.  

Berlusconi, who won a seat in Italy’s Senate during general elections in September, has stirred controversy in recent months with his criticism of Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky, putting him at odds with Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni.

The billionaire, whose Forza Italia party is part of the ruling government coalition, was accused – but acquitted this year – of paying young starlets and others for ‘silence and lies’ about his notoriously hedonistic soirees, which he has always insisted were elegant dinners. 

The verdict was the culmination of a legal battle which began in 2010 when Berlusconi, then prime minister, was accused of abusing his power to protect a young Moroccan nightclub dancer, Karima El-Mahroug. 

Berlusconi, who has five children, was temporarily banned from political office after a conviction for tax fraud in 2013, for which he served a community sentence.

But he returned to the political front lines and was re-elected as a senator last year. 

The media mogul, who first entered politics in 1994, does not currently have a role in government.