{"id":4990,"date":"2013-06-10T07:08:22","date_gmt":"2013-06-10T07:08:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=4990"},"modified":"2013-06-10T07:08:22","modified_gmt":"2013-06-10T07:08:22","slug":"ban-on-mandelas-visitors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=4990","title":{"rendered":"Ban on Mandela’s visitors"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The seriousness of Nelson Mandela\u2019s health status was driven home on Sunday when his family took charge of his hospital stay.<\/p>\n

The Star understands that the family have barred everyone \u2013 including government leaders and senior party officials \u2013 from visiting the ailing icon, who was rushed to Pretoria\u2019s Mediclinic Heart Hospital around 1.30am on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe visited the same hospital on Saturday, but left without seeing Madiba.<\/p>\n

His spokesman, Thabo Masebe, said, however, that Motlanthe was there for a scheduled appointment with his own doctor. \u201cHe never had plans to visit Mandela.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mandela\u2019s family were refusing to issue any statement on Madiba\u2019s health. Spokesman Mandla Mandela was unavailable throughout the weekend.<\/p>\n

President Jacob Zuma\u2019s spokesman, Mac Maharaj, announced for the first time that Mandela\u2019s condition was serious. In all of Mandela\u2019s previous hospitalisations \u2013 six times alone in the past six months \u2013 the presidency had resolutely tried to put a positive spin on statements to what it has described as routine procedures or<\/p>\n

\n

Nelson Mandela\u0019s granddaughters Ndileka and Tukwini, and daughter Makaziwe arrive at Mediclinic Heart Hospital in Pretoria on Sunday. Picture: Phill Magakoe<\/p>\n

THE STAR<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

By the time The Star was published on Sunday night, Maharaj had still not issued an updated statement on Madiba\u2019s health and could not be reached for comment.<\/p>\n

The hospitalisation has puzzled observers, given the sizeable investment in resources and highly trained military medical service personnel at his Houghton, Joburg, residence after his last discharge from hospital.<\/p>\n

The Star has learnt that Mandela\u2019s family issued the ban once his health deteriorated at the weekend because they believe visitors are at best a distraction to efforts to keep him comfortable or at worst leak information to the media.<\/p>\n

Three highly placed government sources told The Star on Sunday that Mandela\u2019s condition was \u201cscary\u201d, but he was still holding on to life.<\/p>\n

\n

Well-placed sources confirmed that the so-called M-Plan, the government\u2019s blueprint for handling every aspect of Mandela\u2019s death \u2013 from his funeral to interment \u2013 was reactivated at the weekend following his readmission to hospital.<\/p>\n

A senior government official said on Sunday: \u201cThe old man is not well. It\u2019s scary. He\u2019s still holding on to his life, but it\u2019s bad. The family don\u2019t want visitors because of his condition. They told the hospital not to allow anyone in because they are a distraction.\u201d<\/p>\n

ANC national spokesman Keith Khoza said the ruling party was watching Mandela\u2019s condition closely.<\/p>\n

Asked if the ANC was aware of the Mandela family\u2019s decision to bar visitors to the hospital, Khoza replied: \u201cNo we are not. It\u2019s only the office of the president that can comment. We don\u2019t talk to the medical staff.\u201d<\/p>\n

Political parties and politicians, meanwhile, continued to wish Mandela a quick recovery on Sunday.<\/p>\n

While Azapo wished Mandela a speedy recovery, it said he should pass on \u201cif God is willing\u201d because South Africans \u201cdo not wish to see images of their heroes frail\u201d. – IOL<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The seriousness of Nelson Mandela\u2019s health status was driven home on Sunday when his family took charge of his hospital stay. The Star understands that the family have barred everyone \u2013 including government leaders and senior party officials \u2013 from visiting the ailing icon, who was rushed to Pretoria\u2019s Mediclinic Heart Hospital around 1.30am on … Continue reading “Ban on Mandela’s visitors”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4993,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,123],"tags":[327,2976],"class_list":["post-4990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-south-africa","category-world","tag-mandela","tag-nelson-mandelas-health-status"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/pressmandela.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4990"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4990\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4995,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4990\/revisions\/4995"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}