Nelson Mandela :Third hospital visit since December after having gallstones and lung infection

Nelson Mandela was expected to spend a fourth day in hospital in South Africa today recovering from pneumonia.

Doctors in Pretoria removed pleural fluid from his lungs yesterday to ease his breathing, but worries continue for the health of the frail 94-year-old. The former South African president suffers from a recurring lung condition as the result of tuberculosis contracted during his 27 years’ imprisonment on Robben Island by the apartheid government.

Mr Mandela spent 18 days in hospital over the Christmas period with a respiratory infection, and also had gallstones removed. He has spent three periods in hospital over the past four months.

Yesterday, South African presidential spokesman Mac Maharaj said that Mr Mandela was ‘responding well and is in good spirits’.
He said fluid had been tapped from his lungs and that he would remain under observation. The president's office thanked all who have prayed for Mr Mandela and his
family and have sent messages of support. Mr Mandela was admitted to a hospital in the capital, Pretoria, late on Wednesday night.   It was his third admission to hospital since December, when he was treated for a lung infection and also underwent a procedure to remove gallstones. Mr Mandela spent 18 days on a ward in December undergoing treatment for a lung infection and gallstones surgery.



Earlier this month, he spent a night in a hospital for what officials said was a scheduled medical test.

Mr Mandela became South Africa's first black president in 1994 after elections were held, bringing an end to the system of white racist rule known as apartheid. He had spent 27 years in prison under the apartheid regime and after his release in 1990 was widely credited with averting even greater bloodshed by helping the country in the transition to democratic rule.

Mr Mandela has spent much of last year in Qunu, his ancestral village in the poor Eastern Cape province.  But since his release from hospital in December he has been at his home in an affluent Johannesburg suburb, close to sophisticated medical care.  Fondly called the ‘father of the nation’, Mr Mandela has been mostly absent from the political scene for the past decade. But he remains an enduring symbol of the struggle against racism.