Doctors “Concerned” over 96-Year Old Queen Elizabeth II’s Health
NEW DELHI, Sept 8: Apprehensions grew on Thursday for the health of by far the longest serving monarch Queen Elizabeth II after Buckingham Palace said her doctors were “concerned” for her health and recommended that she remain under medical supervision.
“Following further evaluation this morning, the Queen’s doctors are concerned for Her Majesty’s health and have recommended she remain under medical supervision,” Buckingham Palace statement said. “The Queen remains comfortable and at Balmoral,” the palace added.
The palace statement about the queen’s health is highly unusual. Knowledgeable sources said the “palace does not issue bulletins on the queen’s health unless it’s significant.” The 96-year-old monarch has been dogged by health problems since October last year that left her with difficulties walking and standing.
Elizabeth remains queen of 15 realms of commonwealth countries including the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Jamaica, Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Belize, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, and Tuvalu. – She celebrated her Platinum Jubilee – the 70th anniversary of her accession – on Feb. 6, 2022.
She further heads the Commonwealth grouping, which comprises 56 nations and takes in more than a quarter of humanity. For most of her subjects, she is the only monarch they have ever known, featuring on stamps, banknotes and coins, and immortalised in popular culture.
Queen Elizabeth II’s closest family travelled to join the monarch. All her children – heir to the throne Prince Charles, 73, Princess Anne, 72, Prince Andrew, 62, and Prince Edward, 58, were either at or heading to join her at the Balmoral royal estate in Scotland, aides said.
Also heading to Balmoral was Charles’s elder son Prince William along with his younger son Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, who have been on a rare visit to Britain after abandoning royal life to move to the United States.
Moments before Thursday’s announcement, notes were passed in the House of Commons to Prime Minister Liz Truss, her ministers and opposition leaders, prompting them to leave the chamber.
“The whole country will be deeply concerned by the news from Buckingham Palace this lunchtime,” the new premier tweeted, just two days after the queen appointed her at Balmoral to succeed Boris Johnson.
“My thoughts – and the thoughts of people across our United Kingdom – are with Her Majesty The Queen and her family at this time,” Truss added, echoed by leaders in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. One photograph of the queen greeting Truss at Balmoral on Tuesday had already sparked alarm, showing a deep purple bruise on the monarch’s right hand.
Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, the highest-ranking cleric in the Church of England headed by the queen, said she was in his prayers. “May God’s presence strengthen and comfort Her Majesty, her family, and those who are caring for her at Balmoral,” he tweeted in comments echoed by other faith leaders.
On Wednesday, a day after Truss’s appointment as the 15th prime minister of her reign, the queen pulled out of a planned meeting with her council of political advisers, after being told to rest.
It comes after she has looked visibly frailer in recent months, and a succession of withdrawals from public engagements. She has taken to walking with the help of a stick and was also seen earlier this year at the Chelsea Flower Show touring the site in a motorised buggy.
In February she was laid low by a bout of Covid, which she admitted afterwards had left her “exhausted.” Officially, the palace has said only that the queen has been suffering from “episodic mobility problems” but given no further details. She spent an unscheduled night in hospital in central London in October 2021 and was advised to slow down. She has pulled out of ceremonial engagements, delegating more to Charles, including the State Opening of Parliament and the Trooping the Colour military parade to mark her official birthday.
Elizabeth was born at 17 Bruton St, London, on April 21, 1926, and christened on May 29 that year in the private chapel at Buckingham Palace. – She became heir apparent when her uncle, Edward VIII, abdicated on Dec. 11, 1936, and her father became King George VI. She was 10 years old.
She married navy lieutenant Philip Mountbatten, a Greek prince, at London’s Westminster Abbey on Nov. 20, 1947. They had four children: Prince Charles (born in 1948), Princess Anne (1950), Prince Andrew (1960) and Prince Edward (1964). Philip died in April 2021, aged 99.
She ascended the throne on the death of her father on Feb. 6, 1952, while she was in Kenya on a royal tour. She was crowned on June 2, 1953 at Westminster Abbey, the first ever coronation to be televised. When she ascended the throne, Josef Stalin, Mao Zedong and Harry Truman were leading the Soviet Union, China and the United States, while Winston Churchill was British prime minister.
She has been served by 15 prime ministers. During her reign, there have been 14 U.S. presidents, all of whom she has met bar Lyndon Johnson. On Sept. 9, 2015, she surpassed the 63 years, 7 months, 2 days, 16 hours and 23 minutes that her great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria spent on the throne to become the country’s longest-reigning monarch in a line dating back to Norman King William the Conqueror in 1066.
(Manas Dasgupta)
