Bangladesh doctors fear for opposition leader Khaleda Zia’s life

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Bangladesh doctors fear for opposition leader Khaleda Zia’s life

Nov 29, 2021: Doctors treating Bangladesh’s ailing opposition leader and former prime minister Khaleda Zia say her life is in danger if she is not allowed to go abroad for medical treatment.

Zia, a 76-year-old leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and a rival of incumbent Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, has been diagnosed with liver cirrhosis. Her doctors said she had suffered three major internal bleeding incidents in the past two weeks.

Her chief doctor, Fakhruddin Muhammad Siddiqui said, “We don’t have the means and supportive technology… here to control and stop rebleeding,”

“The chances of controlling the rebleeding are slim,” he said. “In that case, there is higher risk of her death.”

He said there was a 50-percent chance that Zia would suffer another internal bleed in the next week, and a 70-percent chance it would occur in the next six weeks.

“If we want to save a patient’s life, we need to do TIPS,” he said, referring to the transjagular intrahepatic porto-systemic shunt procedure.

The procedure can only be performed if she is allowed to go abroad.

Zia has been in the critical care unit of a Dhaka hospital since November 13, just five months after recovering from covid 19. But the leader of the main opposition party has been barred from leaving the country by a court in 2018 after being convicted on corruption charges. As her condition worsened, BNP workers and supporters staged protests across the country, demanding that he be allowed to travel for medical treatment.

In the northern district of Natore, about 20 people were injured on November 22 when BNP activists clashed with police.

Hasina earlier this month appeared to reject pleas by Zia’s family and party.

“I have done whatever I can for Khaleda Zia. Now the law will decide the next course of action,” Hasina told a press briefing.

A government minister suggested that the BNP fly in doctors from abroad.

Zia was sentenced to 10 years in prison in February 2018 on corruption charges that the BNP, which was last in power from 2001 to 2006, says were politically motivated.

As her condition worsened in a jail where she was the only inmate, she was allowed to be moved home. She has since been barred from flying abroad and has been receiving treatment from a local hospital.

Her doctors and party allege that Zia, who is suffering from heart failure, rheumatoid arthritis and diabetes, was not treated properly when she was imprisoned.

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