DOCTORS have said that ailing South African statesman Nelson Mandela was in a “permanent vegetative state” and advised his family to turn off his life support, court documents reveal.
The 94-year-old anti-apartheid hero remains in a “critical but stable” condition after nearly four weeks in hospital.
In a legal filing from June 26, medics said: “He is in a permanent vegetative state and is assisted in breathing by a life support machine
“The Mandela family have been advised by the medical practitioners that his life support machine should be switched off.”
Mandela – South Africa’s first democratically-elected president – is receiving treatment for a recurring lung infection in his fourth hospital stay in six months.