Khaleda Zia to be taken to UK for treatment
Staff Reporter :
BNP Chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia will be taken to London, United Kingdom soon for her necessary medical treatment.
She will be taken later to a third country for advanced treatment after taking necessary medical check-up in London.
“We have started preparations to transfer her to a multidisciplinary hospital abroad as soon as possible considering her health condition,” BNP Chief’s personal physician, Professor Dr.AZM Zahid Hossain said on Tuesday.
For taking her abroad the medical team have secured a ‘long-distance specialised air ambulance’ and established necessary communications with medical facilities abroad, Professor Zahid Hossain said.
“She (Khaleda Zia) will initially be flown to London. After a brief stopover, she will be taken to the third country where there are multidisciplinary medical facilities.
We hope to complete all the formalities soon so that Madam can travel abroad swiftly,” he said.
Professor Zahid said also Begum Khaleda Zia’s office has already informed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs regarding her treatment abroad, including details of the doctors, nurses and relatives who will accompany her in the tour.
Begum Khaleda Zia, also a former prime minister, has long battled various ailments, including liver cirrhosis, arthritis, diabetes, kidney and heart related illness and eyes and lung related sickness.
Earlier, on October 26 last year, three US specialist doctors completed the hepatic procedure known as the transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt (TIPS procedure) to stop water accretion in Khaleda Zia’s stomach and chest, and bleeding in her liver.
The BNP chief’s doctors have been recommending sending her abroad since she was diagnosed with liver cirrhosis in November 2021.Begum Khaleda Zia was sent to Old Dhaka Central Jail on February 8, 2018, after a special court sentenced her to five years in prison in the Zia Orphanage Trust graft case.
On October 30, 2018, the High Court raised her punishment to 10 years. Later, she was convicted in the Zia Charitable Trust corruption case.
Amid the coronavirus outbreak, the government was temporarily freed Khaleda Zia from jail after 776 days through an executive order suspending her sentence on March 25, 2020, with conditions that she would stay in her Gulshan house and not leave the country.
On August 6, Khaleda Zia was completely freed by an order of President Mohammad Shahabuddin.
Later, her physicians tried to take her abroad but health condition of the former Prime Minister could not favour yet for long distance travel on air.