Airlifted from Rajshahi, ailing writer Hasan Azizul Huq transferred to BSMMU

Writer Hasan Azizul Huq, who is suffering from health complications, has been transferred to Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University from the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases in Dhaka.

Director of BSMMU, Brig Gen Md Nazrul Islam Khan said on Saturday night they would form a medical team on Sunday for the author’s treatment.

The 82-year-old writer has pneumonia along with heart disease, Nazrul said. He was brought to BSMMU because NICD does not have specialists of other disciplines than cardiologists.

Although he had tested negative for COVID-19, the doctors are treating him as a suspected coronavirus patient.

Hasan Azizul was flown from Rajshahi to the capital by an air ambulance earlier in the day.

“He is in critical condition,” said his son Imtiaj Hasan, an associate professor at Rajshahi University’s biochemistry and molecular biology department. The writer has “overcome” his heart problems, but complications in his lung were unchanged, according to Imtiaj.

Born at Jabgram village of Burdwan in India’s West Bengal district on Feb 2, 1939, Azizul has spent most of his life in Rajshahi.

He retired in 2004 after joining Rajshahi University’s philosophy department as a teacher in 1973. He now lives near the campus.