Doctors attending to opposition leader and former prime minister Khaleda Zia in Bangladesh say that her life is in danger as the government will not allow her to leave the country for urgent medical intervention abroad.
“Suffering from advanced cirrhosis of the liver, Khaleda Zia is at a high risk of dying and she urgently needs a liver transplant at a multidisciplinary advanced medical facility abroad,” Dr. Fakhruddin Mohammad Siddiqui — a member of a medical board taking care of Zia, 78 — said in a news conference in Dhaka Monday.
“A liver transplant cannot be carried out in any hospital in Bangladesh. We have exhausted all available treatment options available in Bangladesh. With her complicated medical conditions, lying in a hospital in Dhaka, she is swinging between life and death.”
The chief of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, Bangladesh’s largest opposition party, two-time former prime minister Zia, who was sentenced to a 17-year jail term on convictions in two corruption cases and has been living under house arrest since 2020, is barred from leaving the country.
Last week, citing legal provisions, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina turned down an appeal from Zia’s family to allow her to travel to Germany for a liver transplant.
For decades, Zia and Hasina, chief of the ruling Awami League party, would alternate in government with metronomic regularity. They have long been each other’s archrival and were called the “Battling Begums” of Bangladesh politics.
Since 2009, when Hasina became prime minister for a second time, her party has won all national elections and she has remained in power for the past 14 years.
BNP leaders allege that the charges of corruption for which Zia was convicted and sent to jail in 2018 were false and politically motivated.
Zia's jail term was suspended by the government in March 2020 and she was released from jail on parole, in view of the risk of her being infected with COVID-19. The sentence was suspended on the condition that in no situation she would be allowed to travel outside the country.
After Zia was released from jail in 2020, her doctors reported that her diabetic conditions had worsened further and she was suffering from ailments of the kidneys, heart and other organs. Her doctors suspected that she had not received proper medical treatment while she was in jail for over two years.
In the past two years, the family of Zia sent at least six official requests, including the one sent on September 30 (2023), seeking permission to let her travel abroad for medical treatment. All requests were rejected by Hasina.
After Zia fell very ill recently, in August she was sent to a private hospital in Dhaka for treatment.
Dr. A. Z. M. Zahid, Zia’s personal physician told VOA that the BNP chief’s health has worsened critically in recent months mostly because she could not receive the crucial medical treatment in an advanced medical facility abroad.
“High dosages of antibiotics are not working. The liver infection is causing fluid to accumulate in lungs, stomach and heart repeatedly. Dr. Zahid said Monday.
“The latest view of the medical board is that she should be taken to a multidisciplinary advanced medical facility abroad for her life-saving treatment as soon as possible, before her medical problems take a fatal turn.”
Last week Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said: “According to the country’s law, there is no scope for granting permission to BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia travel abroad.”
BNP senior joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi said that Zia has been a “victim of political vengeance.”
“It appears, the government has been denying the BNP chairperson the badly needed medical treatment abroad in a conspiracy to gradually push her to death and keep her away from politics in the future,” Rizvi told VOA.
