{"id":9611,"date":"2013-08-25T10:04:38","date_gmt":"2013-08-25T10:04:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=9611"},"modified":"2013-08-25T10:11:27","modified_gmt":"2013-08-25T10:11:27","slug":"mandela-not-stable-at-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=9611","title":{"rendered":"Mandela not stable at times"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"articleBodyPrint\">\n<figure id=\"attachment_9612\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9612\" style=\"width: 275px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/mandela8.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-9612\" alt=\"How will she feel righteous without the 'icon'?\" src=\"http:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/mandela8.jpg\" width=\"275\" height=\"183\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-9612\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">How will she feel righteous without the &#8216;icon&#8217;?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Nelson Mandela&#8217;s health is unstable at times but the critically ill South African &#8220;icon&#8221; has shown &#8220;great resilience&#8221;, the Presidency said on Saturday, as he spent a 78th day in hospital.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;While at times his condition becomes unstable, the doctors indicate that the former president has demonstrated great resilience and his condition tends to stabilise as a result of medical interventions,&#8221; said the statement, the first in nearly two weeks.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The ailing 95-year-old anti-apartheid icon, fondly known by his clan name &#8220;Madiba&#8221;, was hospitalised in Pretoria on 8 June with a recurring lung infection.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;Doctors are still working hard to effect a turnaround and a further improvement in his health and to keep the former president comfortable,&#8221; President Jacob Zuma&#8217;s office added.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Presidency spokesperson Mac Maharaj did not elaborate further on his condition.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;There are times when he has those down moments, he responds to treatment, but there are times when it&#8217;s not stable,&#8221; he told AFP.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;But he&#8217;s stable,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In late June, Zuma cancelled a trip abroad after Mandela&#8217;s health deteriorated but his office said he would leave on Saturday for Malaysia for an official visit as planned.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">While there, he will also receive a peace award on Mandela&#8217;s behalf.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Zuma urged South Africans to continue praying for Mandela and to keep the country&#8217;s first black president constantly in their thoughts.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;His condition is still critical but stable,&#8221; said the statement, echoing the updates on his condition for weeks.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The Presidency is the official channel for public updates about Mandela&#8217;s health, and had not issued a statement since 11 August.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Then, Mandela was said to be making &#8220;a slow but steady improvement&#8221; but that he remained critically ill.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">His youngest daughter Zindzi Mandela said two days earlier that he was able to sit up unaccompanied and was &#8220;more alert, more responsive&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">At the end of July, Zuma&#8217;s office said Mandela was continuing to show signs of improvement after scares were reported.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">US television network CBS said Mandela had undergone a surgical procedure to unblock a dialysis tube.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The broadcaster also reported occasions of Mandela having not responded to his medicines and his life support machine having shown distress.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Mandela has faced several health scares in recent years and his lung problems date back to his 27 years in apartheid jail.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">His current hospitalisation\u00a0\u2014 now entering a 12th week \u2014 is his longest since he walked free from jail in 1990 and went on to become the country&#8217;s first leader to be elected in elections which saw whites marginalised .<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">He has been absent for years from public life, and South Africans have become more familiar with his frailty but his latest ill health prompted a groundswell of wellwishers to gather outside his hospital.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">His 95th birthday last month was marked by charitable deeds, with many people offering 67 minutes of service for the 67 years he was in public service.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In December, he spent nearly three weeks in hospital to be treated for a lung infection and gall stones.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In March, he was admitted overnight for a scheduled check-up, followed by a 10-day admission for pneumonia later that month. &#8211; AFP<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nelson Mandela&#8217;s health is unstable at times but the critically ill South African &#8220;icon&#8221; has shown &#8220;great resilience&#8221;, the Presidency said on Saturday, as he spent a 78th day in hospital. &#8220;While at times his condition becomes unstable, the doctors indicate that the former president has demonstrated great resilience and his condition tends to stabilise &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=9611\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Mandela not stable at times&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9612,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[3401,5484,5483,2289,560,4997],"class_list":["post-9611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-south-africa","tag-critical","tag-health-status","tag-icon","tag-madiba","tag-nelson-mandela","tag-stable"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/mandela8.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9611","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=9611"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9611\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9613,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9611\/revisions\/9613"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}