Video: Mugabe’s hospital shuttles increase

via Video: Mugabe’s hospital shuttles increase – The Zimbabwe Independent March 20, 2015 by faith Zaba

EVIDENCE that President Robert Mugabe is experiencing mounting health problems, fuelled by old-age complications, is all the more becoming hard to deny as his hospital shuttles increase as shown by further disclosures he was in Singapore this week for three days for medical reasons.

This comes hardly a week after he passed through the exclusive Gleneagles Hospital in Singapore — which treats eye and cancer problems — on his way to Japan for a conference. Mugabe left ahead of his delegation to pass through Singapore on his way to Japan last week.

Official sources say he then left Japan on Monday for Singapore where he was until yesterday. Part of his delegation returns home today around midday.
Latest developments come as new information indicates that he might be back in Singapore soon for more medicals. Over the past few years, Mugabe has been shuttling to Singapore for health reasons, suggesting he has serious medical problems with metastasized prostate cancer and eye cataracts being reported as the ailments.

Mugabe — now an absentee president — is expected to go to Windhoek either today or tomorrow for the inauguration of new Namibian President Hage Geingob, as well as celebrations to mark the 25th anniversary of that country’s independence on March 21.

After Namibia and another expected trip to Singapore, Mugabe, who chairs both the African Union and Sadc, is also expected to attend an African Union meeting which will coincide with the African Development Bank (AfDB) annual general meeting in May in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, where the new AfDB president will be elected and the 50th anniversary of the bank marked.

Zimbabwean Thomas Zondo Sakala, who has worked with the bank for 31 years, is battling with seven other candidates from Ethiopia, Cape Verde, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Tunisia, Chad and Mali for the presidency of the multilateral institution.

Official sources say the irony of Mugabe’s attendance to the inauguration of new leaders in the region is now poignant. Geingob takes over from Hifikepunye Pohamba and will become the third Namibian president since its independence in 1990.

Mugabe, who has been in power for 35 years now, was recently in Zambia for newly-elected President Edgar Lungu’s inauguration. Lungu is Zambia’s sixth president since independence in 1964.

Besides Namibia and Zambia, other countries in the Sadc region which have been changing their leaders regularly include Mozambique, Botswana and South Africa. The trip to and from Japan via Singapore was Mugabe’s third this year to the Far East where he regularly seeks medical treatment, including his December annual vacation during which he reportedly underwent what was said to be a major prostate cancer operation at Parkway Cancer Centre at Gleneagles Hospital. He had to extend his stay in January to allow him time to recuperate for which he apologised upon his return.

His wife Grace also had an appendix operation, a third one in her life, during their holidays.

Mugabe’s old age and health problems have created a situation, now all too evident this year, in which he is often away from official duty either attending meetings or going for medical treatment.

Video footage of Mugabe, while he was in Japan at a United Nations disaster risk reduction conference, showed him rise unsteadily to his feet, holding his speech in his left hand and occasionally appearing to be using the wall to steady himself with the right hand. His steps were slow and laboured as he made his way to the podium with an aide closely following behind.

Mugabe seemed to struggle up the stairs to the podium, clutching tightly to the rails of the staircase in order to steady himself and at one point he was hand-held by a lady who appeared to be a UN official. His aide had to walk closely behind him and sometimes appeared to support him from behind as he made his way up the staircase.