Zuma: Mandela returning home a ‘positive’ move

South Africa’s president said he was pleased Nelson Mandela had gone home from a hospital, saying it indicated the progress that the anti-apartheid leader had made even though he remains in critical condition.

An ambulance returned 95-year-old Mandela to his Johannesburg house on Sunday, and the office of President Jacob Zuma said he will receive the same level of care there that he did in the hospital, administered by the same doctors.

“He remains critical but stable, responding to treatment,” Zuma said. “I think we feel very good that he reached a point where the doctors who were treating him felt he could now leave the hospital to his home, which indicates the progress he had made.”

Zuma also said: “We acknowledge that he is old and that he’s not well but we are very happy that he’s gone home, that he’s still with us.”

Mandela was admitted to the hospital on June 8 for what the government described as a recurring lung infection. Legal papers filed by his family said he was on life support.

Yesterday, the former surgeon general of South Africa’s military, Vejay Ramlakan, visited Mandela’s home. Ramlakan was often seen arriving at the hospital in Pretoria during Mandela’s stay there.

Mandela has been treated by a large medical team from the military, academia, the private sector and other public health sectors, according to Zuma’s office.

Some residents in Mandela’s hometown of Qunu, in the Eastern Cape province, said Mandela should return to their rural area, where he had lived in recent years until ill health compelled authorities to fly him to Johannesburg so he could be near the best available medical care.