The Duchess of Cornwall is to undergo a hysterectomy early next month, Clarence House confirmed yesterday.

Describing the procedure as routine, a spokeswoman said that the Duchess would recuperate for six weeks after she had undergone the operation to remove her womb.

She emphasised that the wife of the Prince of Wales was not suffering from cancer.

The Duchess is expected to have her operation at the King Edward VII Hospital in Central London, which in the past has treated the Queen for an injured knee and the late Princess Margaret for respiratory problems. The Princess died there five years ago.

Surgery has been delayed to allow the Duchess to accompany her husband on a nine-day tour of Gulf states, beginning next week, undertaken at the request of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and regarded as an important diplomatic mission to friendly Arab nations in the light of the continuing Iraq conflict.

The Duchess’s office offered her apologies that she would have to cancel several public engagements during her recuperation period, although so far she has few duties in her diary for the spring.

Clarence House would not disclose the reason for the operation.

The Duchess has two grown-up children by her former husband, Andrew Parker Bowles; her son, Tom, is now 32 and her daughter, Laura 29.

“We wouldn’t give any further details,” the spokeswoman said. She said that the Duchess’s illnesses in December and January were not related to her present condition.

The Duchess cancelled a visit in December with her husband to a Christmas pudding factory in Heanor, Derbyshire, after which she should have travelled to the nearby village of Ashover to switch on its seasonal lights.

Last month, while she was on holiday at Birkhall, the couple’s retreat near Balmoral, the Duchess had to postpone a visit to the University of Aberdeen to open a new medical research centre.

On both occasions Clarence House said that the Duchess had been suffering from gastroenteritis.

Two weeks ago, the Duchess accompanied her husband on a weekend visit to Philadelphia and New York, travelling 3,000 miles by scheduled airliner to collect an environmental award. The Duchess, who appeared at a formal dinner wearing a stunning ruby and diamond necklace, believed to have been a gift from the ruling family of Saudi Arabia, showed no obvious signs of discomfort during the brief tour.

Yesterday, again showing no outward signs of pain, the Duchess met patients suffering from osteoporosis when she opened a state-of-the-art medical centre in Chippenham, Wiltshire.

She accepted the presidency of the National Osteoporosis Society after her mother died of the brittle-bone disease.

She discussed how osteoporosis had affected her own family when she met Jean Hastings, 90, and Ruby Wright, 87, two sisters from Chippenham who are afflicted by the condition.

Hysterectomy

1886 coined in English from the Greek hystera, “womb”, plus - ectomy, from Greek ektome, “a cutting-out”

Source: Online Etymology Dictionary

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