Mandela's last moments spent with ex-wife, claims doctor

Former South African President Nelson Mandela in 2006. Photo / AP file

By Krista Mahr in Johannesburg

A book by Nelson Mandela's former doctor, detailing his observations of the former South African President's final days, has been withdrawn by its publisher after drawing anger from the late leader's family.

Mandela's Last Years, written by his long-time physician Vejay Ramlakan, discloses intimate details about Mandela's health and family infighting prior to his death in 2013.

The book was released on July 18 in conjunction with Mandela Day, his birthday.

Ramlakan recounts the final moments of the South African leader, writing that, in addition to himself and the medical team, the only other person at Mandela's bedside when he died was his former wife Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, not his wife at the time, Graça Machel.

"As a now-still Madiba lay, with his hand in hers, in the soft glow of the beside lamp, all of us experienced a sorrow the depths of which we had not experienced before," he wrote.

The book includes an account of a close medical call six months before Mandela died, when the engine blew in an ambulance carrying him to the hospital, and how later, after his death, a "spy camera" was found in the mortuary.

Members of the Mandela family objected to the book's publication, saying it breached doctor-patient confidentiality.

Machel, Mandela's widow, called it an "affront to and an assault on the trust and dignity of my late husband" and said she was considering legal action, according to a statement cited in South African media.

The book's publisher, Penguin Random House South Africa, said yesterday that it would withdraw the book.

Ramlakan has said the family requested him to write the book and that "all parties who needed to be consulted were consulted".