By Paul Nyathi|Former First Lady Grace Mugabe’s health is reported to be deteriorating very fast amid reports that doctors are giving her a little chance of survival.

Sources close to her indicate to media that her battle with an appendectomy operation in 2015 in Singapore is failing, and that it could be a matter of time before she loses the fight.

Speculation was rife that Mugabe’s life is in danger, but it turns out that Grace is the one fighting for her life.

Grace Mugabe underwent an operation to remove her appendix in 2015, and sources say she has been having a pain discomfort ever since.

“Doctors have have been trying to correct the problem ever since, and on her last trip they re-opened the operation and closed her up again,” according to sources quoted by online media.

Three years ago, Grace spent several weeks in Singapore, reportedly for an operation to remove her appendix, yet the private Zimbabwe Independent newspaper, citing family sources, said she actually had surgery for colon cancer.

Colon cancer is a very dangerous ailment, which claimed the life of the country’s former prime minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, in February this year. Tsvangirai died in a South African hospital at the age of 65.

“The truth is not being openly told,” said the doctor based in Hong Kong. “Mrs Mugabe is very ill, her days are numbered. She was told back in 2014 by her specialists that she had little time left. The people of Zimbabwe might be shocked to witness Mugabe burying his wife. You are a christian nation, and this is the time your prayers are needed for your first lady.”

Other government informants in the capital said the former first lady was strong and had been putting up a brave face all along, “but she is in pain”. President Emmerson Mnangagwa is footing the former first couple’s medical bills, and has directed that their air travel arrangements to their Singapore doctors be upgraded.

Mugabe and his wife, Grace, were on Sunday flown to Singapore in a chartered plane for their latest round of medical check-ups.

The couple and their aides left on a plane chartered by the Zimbabwe government in the early hours of Sunday – just days after a decision to hire a Gulfstream private jet to bring Grace home for her mother’s funeral sparked national outrage.

The Gulfstream jet was reportedly hired for hundreds of thousands of dollars. The government went on to pick the bill for the burial of Idah Murufu, Grace’s mother who died aged 83.

The Mugabes’ latest trip – which the Zimbabwe government will argue is part of Mugabe’s pension dues – comes as the country battles a new cholera outbreak that had killed at least 30 people in Harare by Sunday.

In its response to the cholera crisis, the cash-strapped government has turned to crowdfunding. Donor agencies and corporates have carried most of the weight, notably Econet Wireless which availed $10 million.

The irony of the Mugabes’ latest medical trip will not be lost on the cholera victims and their families as they deal with the consequences of urban infrastructure and health facilities collapse – all of which took place under Mugabe’s 37 years in power, abruptly ended by a military coup last November.