King Charles has joked about ageing as he opened a new hospital in Birmingham, telling a patient “the bits don’t work so well when you get past 70”.
The King, 76, officially opened the Midland Metropolitan University Hospital in Smethwick on Wednesday.
The 736-bed facility opened its doors to patients last October.
One of them, Jacqueline Page, 85, from nearby Great Barr, told him she had seen him when he visited the city in 1978.
She said he shook hands with her parents but she “didn’t get a look in, so I’m so delighted to meet you today”.
The King reminisced about the “wonderful old helicopter” he arrived in that day, before the conversation turned to ageing and Mrs Page told him she was “wearing out”.
The King replied: “I know, this is the terrible thing, as I am discovering already. The bits don’t work so well when you get past 70.”
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The King greeted the crowds of hundreds of patients, staff, medical students and volunteers, who cheered, clapped and took selfies as he stopped to shake their hands and speak to them.
He asked prostate cancer patient Matthew Shinda, 73, what he liked to drink, to which his daughter replied he “loves his malts”.
The monarch asked if he was allowed a “tiny dram of whisky occasionally”, adding “I knew I should have brought one, it is supposed to be good for the heart.”
The King also met the first baby to have been born at the hospital and her parents, Semhar Tesfu and Yonas Kflu, from Perry Barr.
Hernata Yonas arrived at just 90 minutes after the maternity ward opened its doors for the first time.
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Sir David Nicholson, chairman of the Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust, said it was a “tremendous honour” to have the King unveil a plaque marking the official opening.
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Earlier, the King toured the Oratory of St Philip Neri in Birmingham following the canonisation of Cardinal John Henry Newman.
The King viewed historic items in the library and the cardinal’s personal effects in his room, which has remained untouched since his death in 1890.
The monarch was diagnosed with an undisclosed form of cancer in February 2024.
