Nelson Mandela hospitalized – Reporters Nepal https://nepalireporter.com Impart Educate Propel Thu, 11 Jul 2013 08:04:00 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.2.6 https://nepalireporter.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/cropped-RN_Logo-32x32.png Nelson Mandela hospitalized – Reporters Nepal https://nepalireporter.com 32 32 Mandela “responding to treatment”: S.African president https://nepalireporter.com/2013/07/14187 https://nepalireporter.com/2013/07/14187#respond Thu, 11 Jul 2013 08:04:00 +0000 http://nepalireporter.com/?p=14187 JOHANNESBURG: Former South African president and anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela is responding to treatment but remains in a critical but stable condition after more than a month in hospital, the office of President Jacob Zuma said on Wednesday. “We are encouraged that Madiba is responding to treatment and urge the public to continue providing support […]]]>

JOHANNESBURG: Former South African president and anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela is responding to treatment but remains in a critical but stable condition after more than a month in hospital, the office of President Jacob Zuma said on Wednesday.

“We are encouraged that Madiba is responding to treatment and urge the public to continue providing support and showering him with love, which gives him and the family strength,” Zuma himself said after visiting Mandela, often referred to affectionately by his clan name Madiba, in a Pretoria hospital.

Mandela, whose 95th birthday is on July 18, has been receiving treatment for a recurring lung infection that has led to four hospital stays in the past six months.

A presidency statement said Zuma “found Mandela still critical but stable, and was informed by doctors that he was responding to treatment”.

The faltering health of South Africa’s first black president, a figure admired globally as a symbol of struggle against injustice and racism, has reinforced a realisation that the father of post-apartheid South Africa will not be around for ever.

His eldest daughter Makaziwe said in a court document filed late in June that her father was in a “perilous” condition and breathing with the aid of life-support machines.

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Obama protesters rally near hospital treating Mandela https://nepalireporter.com/2013/06/13601 https://nepalireporter.com/2013/06/13601#respond Fri, 28 Jun 2013 17:35:29 +0000 http://nepalireporter.com/?p=13601 PRETORIA: Hundreds of people in the South African capital Pretoria demonstrated on Friday against a visit by U.S. President Barack Obama, marching near a hospital where anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela lay critically ill.

Flying on board Air Force One from Senegal, Obama paid tribute to Mandela who as South Africa’s first black president led the nation out of apartheid, but said he was not seeking a “photo op” with the ailing statesman.

Mandela, 94, has been in the Pretoria heart clinic with a lung infection for nearly three weeks, his fourth spell in hospital in six months.

A Nobel Peace Prize laureate like Obama, Mandela is admired around the world as a symbol of resistance against injustice and of racial reconciliation. His condition improved over Wednesday night but he remained critical.

Nearly 1,000 trade unionists, Muslim activists and South African Communist Party members marched through the capital to the U.S. Embassy where they burned a U.S. flag in protest, calling Obama’s foreign policy “arrogant and oppressive”.

Muslim activists held prayers in a car park outside the embassy. Leader Imam Sayeed Mohammed told the group: “We hope that Mandela feels better and that Obama can learn from him.”

South African critics of Obama have focused in particular on his support for U.S. drone strikes overseas, which they say have killed hundreds of innocent civilians, and his failure to fulfill a pledge to close the U.S. military detention centre at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba housing terrorism suspects.

Protesters said the first African-American president should not try to link himself to the anti-apartheid figure.

“Mandela valued human life … Mandela would condemn drone attacks and civilian deaths, Mandela cannot be his hero, he cannot be on that list,” said Yousha Tayob.

“TWO GREAT MEN”

A few blocks away at the Pretoria heart hospital, well-wishers paying tribute to Mandela had words of praise for Obama, who met Mandela in 2005 when he was still a U.S. senator.

Nigerian painter Sanusi Olatunji, 31, had brought portraits of both Mandela and Obama to the wall of the hospital, where flowers, tribute notes and gifts for Madiba, as Mandela is affectionately known, have been piling up.

“These are the two great men of my lifetime,” he said.

“To me, Mandela is a prophet who brought peace and opportunity. He made it possible for a black man like me to live in a country that was only for whites.”

During his weekend trip to Johannesburg, Pretoria and Cape Town, Obama is scheduled to visit Robben Island, the former penal colony where Mandela passed 18 years of the 27 years he spent in apartheid prisons.

White House officials have said they will defer to the Mandela family on whether a visit to the hospital would be appropriate.

Obama, who has been in office since 2009, is making his first substantial visit to Africa following a short trip to Ghana at the beginning of his first term.

South Africans held prayer vigils outside the Pretoria hospital and at Mandela’s former Soweto home Thursday night.

But as his health has deteriorated this year, there is a growing realisation among South Africa’s 53 million people that the man who forged their multi-racial “Rainbow Nation” from the ashes of apartheid may be nearing his end.

The possibility of his dying has already generated controversy among the extended Mandela clan.

A dispute between factions of the family over the anti-apartheid leader’s proposed final resting place in the Eastern Cape went legal on Friday when his eldest daughter and a dozen other relatives won a court order against his grandson, Mandla.

SABC, South Africa’s state broadcaster, said the court had ordered Mandla to return the remains of three of Mandela’s children from Mvezo, where Mandla is now chief, to Qunu, Mandela’s ancestral home 20 km (13 miles) away.

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Mandela’s health worsens, condition now ‘critical’ https://nepalireporter.com/2013/06/13414 https://nepalireporter.com/2013/06/13414#respond Mon, 24 Jun 2013 04:16:31 +0000 http://nepalireporter.com/?p=13414 JOHANNESBURG: Former South African president Nelson Mandela ‘s condition deteriorated to “critical” on Sunday, the government said, two weeks after the 94-year-old anti-apartheid leader was admitted to hospital with a lung infection. The worsening of his condition is bound to concern South Africa’s 53 million people, for whom Mandela remains the architect of a peaceful […]]]>

JOHANNESBURG: Former South African president Nelson Mandela ‘s condition deteriorated to “critical” on Sunday, the government said, two weeks after the 94-year-old anti-apartheid leader was admitted to hospital with a lung infection.

The worsening of his condition is bound to concern South Africa’s 53 million people, for whom Mandela remains the architect of a peaceful transition to democracy in 1994 after three centuries of white domination.

A government statement said President Jacob Zuma and the deputy leader of the ruling African National Congress (ANC), Cyril Ramaphosa, visited Mandela in his Pretoria hospital, where doctors said his condition had gone downhill in the last 24 hours.

“The doctors are doing everything possible to get his condition to improve and are ensuring that Madiba is well looked after and is comfortable,” it said, referring to him by his clan name.

Mandela, who became South Africa’s first black president after historic all-race elections nearly two decades ago, was rushed to a Pretoria hospital on June 8 with a recurrence of a lung infection, his fourth hospitalisation in six months.

Until Sunday, official communiques had described his condition as “serious but stable” although comments last week from Mandela family members and his presidential successor, Thabo Mbeki, suggested he was on the mend.

Since stepping down after one term as president, Mandela has played little role in the public or political life of the continent’s biggest and most important economy.

His last public appearance was waving to fans from the back of a golf cart before the final of the soccer World Cup in Johannesburg’s Soccer City stadium in July 2010.

During his retirement, he has divided his time between his home in the wealthy Johannesburg suburb of Houghton, and Qunu, the village in the impoverished Eastern Cape province where he was born.

The public’s last glimpse of him was a brief clip aired by state television in April during a visit to his home by Zuma and other senior ANC officials.

At the time, the 101-year-old liberation movement, which led the fight against white-minority rule, assured the public Mandela was “in good shape” although the footage showed a thin and frail old man sitting expressionless in an armchair.

“Obviously we are very worried,” ANC spokesman Jackson Mthembu told Johannesburg station Talk Radio 702. “We are praying for him, his family and the doctors.”

“ABSOLUTELY AN ICON”

Since his latest admission to hospital, well-wishers have been arriving at his Johannesburg home, with scores of school-children leaving painted stones outside the gates bearing prayers for his recovery.

However, for the first time, South African media have broken a taboo against contemplating the inevitable passing of the father of the post-apartheid “Rainbow Nation” and one of the 20th century’s most influential figures.

The day after he went into hospital, South Africa’s Sunday Times newspaper carried a front-page headline saying it was “time to let him go”.

“He’s absolutely an icon and if he’s gone we just have to accept that. He will be gone but his teachings, what he stood for, I’m sure we’ve all learnt and we should be able to live with it and reproduce it wherever we go,” said Tshepho Langa, a customer at a Johannesburg hotel.

“He’s done his best,” he added. “We are grateful for it and we are willing to do the good that he has done.”

Despite the widespread adulation, Mandela is not without detractors at home and in the rest of Africa who feel that in the dying days of apartheid he made too many concessions to whites, who make up just 10 percent of the population.

After more than 10 years of affirmative action policies aimed at redressing the balance, South Africa remains one of the world’s most unequal societies, with whites still controlling much of the economy and the average white household earning six times more than a black one.

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Mandela remains in hospital for 5th day https://nepalireporter.com/2013/06/13010 https://nepalireporter.com/2013/06/13010#respond Wed, 12 Jun 2013 12:10:02 +0000 http://nepalireporter.com/?p=13010 JOHANNESBURG: For the fifth straight day, former South African President Nelson was in a Pretoria hospital on Wednesday, being treated for a recurring lung infection. The 94-year-old icon was hospitalized on Saturday. Two of Mandela’s daughters and his former wife visited the hospital where Mandela is staying on Tuesday. President Jacob Zuma called Mandela’s situation […]]]>

JOHANNESBURG: For the fifth straight day, former South African President Nelson was in a Pretoria hospital on Wednesday, being treated for a recurring lung infection.

The 94-year-old icon was hospitalized on Saturday. Two of Mandela’s daughters and his former wife visited the hospital where Mandela is staying on Tuesday. President Jacob Zuma called Mandela’s situation “very serious” but said he has stabilized.

Mandela, the leader of South Africa’s anti-apartheid movement, spent 27 years in prison during white racist rule. He was freed in 1990, and then embarked on peacemaking efforts during the tense transition that saw the demise of the apartheid system and his own election asSouth Africa’s first black president in 1994.

His admission to a hospital in Pretoria, the capital, is Mandela’s fourth time being admitted to a hospital for treatment since December.

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Mandela’s health condition ‘serious but stable’ https://nepalireporter.com/2013/06/12870 https://nepalireporter.com/2013/06/12870#respond Sat, 08 Jun 2013 11:47:00 +0000 http://nepalireporter.com/?p=12870 JOHANNESBURG: Nelson Mandela was back in hospital on Saturday in a “serious but stable” condition suffering from a recurrent lung infection, the latest health scare for South Africa´s frail anti-apartheid icon. Mandela, who turns 95 next month, was admitted to hospital in the capital Pretoria in the early hours of Saturday, his fourth hospital stay […]]]>

JOHANNESBURG: Nelson Mandela was back in hospital on Saturday in a “serious but stable” condition suffering from a recurrent lung infection, the latest health scare for South Africa´s frail anti-apartheid icon.

Mandela, who turns 95 next month, was admitted to hospital in the capital Pretoria in the early hours of Saturday, his fourth hospital stay in seven months .

“During the past few days former president Nelson Mandela has had a recurrence of lung infection,” President Jacob Zuma´s office said in a statement.

“This morning at about 1:30 am (2330 GMT Friday) his condition deteriorated and he was transferred to a Pretoria hospital. He remains in a serious but stable condition.”

The Nobel Peace Prize winner, who has long had problems with his lungs, had been released from hospital in April following a 10-day stay for treatment for pneumonia.

In December 2012, he was hospitalised for 18 days for a lung infection and for gallstones surgery, his longest stay since he walked free from 27 years in jail in 1990. In March he was admitted for a day for a scheduled check-up.

Zuma´s office said on Saturday that “the former president is receiving expert medical care and doctors are doing everything possible to make him better and comfortable.”

“President Jacob Zuma, on behalf of government and the nation, wishes Madiba a speedy recovery and requests the media and the public to respect the privacy of Madiba and his family,” it added, using Mandela´s clan name.

Beloved as South Africa´s first black democratically elected president, Mandela is still a powerful symbol of unity for the once-bitterly divided nation almost 20 years after first taking power.

But he has not been seen in public since the World Cup final in July 2010 when he appeared on the pitch before kick-off.

In March, Zuma appeared to prepare the nation for the passing of the father of the “Rainbow Nation”.

“In Zulu, when someone passes away who is very old, people say he or she has gone home. I think those are some of the things we should be thinking about,” Zuma told the BBC.

Following his April hospital stay, the release of television footage showing a frail and distant Mandela being visited at home by leaders of the ruling ANC sparked outrage and accusations that the party was exploiting Mandela.

The images aired by state broadcaster SABC — the first public footage of the Nobel peace laureate in almost nine months — showed an unsmiling, distant Mandela seated upright on a couch, his legs covered in a blanket.

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Nelson Mandela “comfortable”, treated for pneumonia https://nepalireporter.com/2013/03/9886 https://nepalireporter.com/2013/03/9886#respond Sat, 30 Mar 2013 12:45:05 +0000 http://nepalireporter.com/?p=9886 JOHANNESBURG: Former South African President Nelson Mandela is comfortable and able to breathe without problems as he continues to respond to treatment in hospital for a recurrence ofpneumonia, President Jacob Zuma’s office said on Saturday. After the 94-year-old anti-apartheid legend spent a third night in hospital, the presidency cited doctors as saying they had drained […]]]>

JOHANNESBURG: Former South African President Nelson Mandela is comfortable and able to breathe without problems as he continues to respond to treatment in hospital for a recurrence ofpneumonia, President Jacob Zuma’s office said on Saturday.

After the 94-year-old anti-apartheid legend spent a third night in hospital, the presidency cited doctors as saying they had drained excess fluid from his lungs to tackle the infection.

“This has resulted in him now being able to breathe without difficulty. He continues to respond to treatment and is comfortable,” the statement added.

In the first detailed mention of his medical condition since his hospitalization, the statement said he had “developed a pleural effusion which was tapped”.

Previous medical reports since he was taken to hospital late on Wednesday have said he was responding well and that he was in “good spirits”.

The successive bulletins have appeared to indicate that the recurrence of the lung infection afflicting the revered statesman and Nobel Peace Prize laureate is being successfully treated.

Global figures such as U.S. President Barack Obama have sent get well messages and South Africans have included Mandela in their prayers on the Easter weekend, one of the most important dates of the Christian calendar.

Mandela became South Africa’s first black president after winning the country’s first all-race election in 1994.

A former lawyer, he is revered at home and abroad for leading the struggle against white minority rule – including spending 27 years on Robben Island and other prisons – and then promoting the cause of racial reconciliation.

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SAfrica: Mandela in hospital with lung infection https://nepalireporter.com/2013/03/9819 https://nepalireporter.com/2013/03/9819#respond Thu, 28 Mar 2013 09:24:03 +0000 http://nepalireporter.com/?p=9819 JOHANNESBURG: Nelson Mandela, the anti-apartheid leader who became South Africa’s first black president, has been admitted to a hospital with a recurring lung infection, South Africa said Thursday. Mandela, 94, has become increasingly frail in recent years and has been hospitalized several times since last year, mostly recently earlier this month when he received what […]]]>

JOHANNESBURG: Nelson Mandela, the anti-apartheid leader who became South Africa’s first black president, has been admitted to a hospital with a recurring lung infection, South Africa said Thursday.

Mandela, 94, has become increasingly frail in recent years and has been hospitalized several times since last year, mostly recently earlier this month when he received what a presidential spokesman described as a “successful” medical test.

Mandela was admitted to a hospital just before midnight Wedesday “due to the recurrence of his lung infection,” the office of President Jacob Zuma said in a statement.

“Doctors are attending to him, ensuring that he has the best possible expert medical treatment and comfort,” the statement said. It appealed “for understanding and privacy in order to allow space to the doctors to do their work.”

Zuma wished Mandela a speedy recovery, referring to him affectionately by his clan name, “Madiba.”

“We appeal to the people of South Africa and the world to pray for our beloved Madiba and his family and to keep them in their thoughts. We have full confidence in the medical team and know that they will do everything possible to ensure recovery,” the presidential statement quoted Zuma as saying.

Mandela spent a night in a hospital and was released on March 10 following a medical test. At that time, presidential spokesman Mac Maharaj said Mandela was “well.”

In December, Mandela spent three weeks in a hospital, where he was treated for a lung infection and had a procedure to remove gallstones. A year ago, Mandela was admitted to a Johannesburg hospital for what officials initially described as tests but what turned out to be an acute respiratory infection. He was discharged days later. He also had surgery for an enlarged prostate gland in 1985.

Under South Africa’s white-minority apartheid regime, Mandela served 27 years in prison, where he contracted tuberculosis, before being released in 1990. He later became the nation’s first democratically elected president in 1994 under the banner of the African National Congress, helping to negotiate a relatively peaceful end to apartheid despite fears of much greater bloodshed. He served one five-year term as president before retiring.

Perceived successes during Mandela’s tenure include the introduction of a constitution with robust protections for individual rights and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a panel that heard testimony about apartheid-era violations of human rights as a kind of national therapy session. South Africa still struggles with crime, economic inequality and other social ills.

Mandela last made a public appearance on a major stage when South Africa hosted the 2010 World Cup soccer tournament.

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