PANAPRESS
Panafrican News Agency
South Africa: Mandela's former doctor faces major backlash over tell-all book
Cape Town, South Africa (PANA) – Former President Nelson Mandela’s grandson‚ Nkosi Mandla Mandela‚ has joined the chorus of condemnation over a new book by South Africa’s former Surgeon-General Dr Vijay Ramlakan who has published a book providing sensitive and confidential medical information.
Mandela’s widow Graca Machel at the weekend threatened to take legal action over “Mandela’s Final Years.” Mandela agreed with Machel that the book constituted an “ethical breach and certainly violates the doctor-patient confidentiality principle”.
He accused Ramlakan of violating Mandela’s privacy. “We are aggrieved as a family that the privilege of administering to President Nelson Mandela afforded to the doctor appears to have been vilely abused‚” he said. He added that “we are deeply disappointed that the doctor appears to have compromised himself and the man whom he had the privilege to serve”.
Machel said the book is an affront to and an assault on the trust and dignity of the Nobel Laureate. “It breaches the doctor–patient relationship of confidentiality and I am taking legal advice on whether to institute legal proceedings against the author and its publisher,” she said.
“Mandela’s Last Years" provides an intimate account of the world statesman’s deteriorating health when he suffered from stomach and ulcer bleeding and a lung infection.
Ramlakan also revealed that he was accompanying the former president from his Johannesburg home to a Pretoria hospital in the dead of night when the ambulance caught fire. Thirty minutes later a backup ambulance arrived and took them to the hospital.
-0- PANA CU/MA 24July2017
Mandela’s widow Graca Machel at the weekend threatened to take legal action over “Mandela’s Final Years.” Mandela agreed with Machel that the book constituted an “ethical breach and certainly violates the doctor-patient confidentiality principle”.
He accused Ramlakan of violating Mandela’s privacy. “We are aggrieved as a family that the privilege of administering to President Nelson Mandela afforded to the doctor appears to have been vilely abused‚” he said. He added that “we are deeply disappointed that the doctor appears to have compromised himself and the man whom he had the privilege to serve”.
Machel said the book is an affront to and an assault on the trust and dignity of the Nobel Laureate. “It breaches the doctor–patient relationship of confidentiality and I am taking legal advice on whether to institute legal proceedings against the author and its publisher,” she said.
“Mandela’s Last Years" provides an intimate account of the world statesman’s deteriorating health when he suffered from stomach and ulcer bleeding and a lung infection.
Ramlakan also revealed that he was accompanying the former president from his Johannesburg home to a Pretoria hospital in the dead of night when the ambulance caught fire. Thirty minutes later a backup ambulance arrived and took them to the hospital.
-0- PANA CU/MA 24July2017
