Singapore - Lee Kuan Yew says nerve disease hasn't affected him

SINGAPORE - Singapore's founding father Lee Kuan Yew has said that a neurological disease has not affected him mentally, a local report said Monday.

"I have no doubt at all that this has not affected my mind, my will nor my resolve," the former prime minister, who turned 88, was quoted as saying in The Straits Times.

"People in wheelchairs can make a contribution. I've still got two legs, I make a contribution," he said.

Lee said the disease surfaced two years ago when he was 86.

"At 86, many of my contemporaries are either in wheelchairs or not around. So I'm grateful to be still around at 86, although less steady than before," he said at the sidelines of a community event.

"But as you see, one learns to adjust, and I take steps which are wider apart to maintain some balance."

Lee's battle against the neurological disease was first revealed on Sunday by his daughter Lee Wei Ling, director of the National Neuroscience Institute of Singapore, in her weekly column in the Sunday Times newspaper.

She said Lee was suffering from sensory peripheral neuropathy which has caused the sensation from his legs to the spinal cord to be impaired and made his walking unsteady.

She said her father was determined to fight the disease and practised walking on a treadmill at home three times a day without fail.

Lee retired from the cabinet after general elections in May but continues to travel overseas and remains a member of parliament, a post he has held since 1955. He served as prime minister from 1959 to 1990.

He is the father of the current prime minister Lee Hsien Loong.

AFP

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