Medical board to be formed for Khaleda again as BNP demands treatment at United Hospital

The authorities will form another medical board for a health checkup of BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia, the home minister has said.

“We will take the best possible steps, if necessary, following recommendations after the checkup and in light of related guidelines,” Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said after a meeting with a BNP delegation on Sunday.

The seven-strong BNP team demanded Khaleda be shifted to the United Hospital for ‘better’ treatment as soon as possible, the party’s Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said.

“We have urged him to transfer [Khaleda Zia] to a specialised hospital as soon as possible. We have suggested United Hospital as she always prefers it.”

Kamal agreed to make a decision on the matter after discussions with the relevant secretaries and other officials and promised to take suggestions from the specialist physicians, Fakhrul said. 

The minister would not specify a time for the decisions but said he will arrange the meetings on Sunday.

The meeting was held from 3pm to 3:50pm on the fourth floor of the home minister’s office at the Secretariat. Inspector General of Prisons Brigadier General Syed Iftekhar Uddin was seen entering the room during the meeting.

BNP Standing Committee members Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain, Jamiruddin Sircar, Rafiqul Islam Mia, Mirza Abbas, Abdul Moyeen Khan, and Nazrul Islam Khan accompanied Fakhrul.

The home minister said the BNP leaders submitted a set of requests claiming that the former prime minister was sick and her health was worsening.

The minister said Security Services Secretary Farid Uddin Ahmed Chowdhury and IG Prisons Syed Iftekhar were asked to take steps following the BNP leaders’ requests.

“Our government doctors and others who had treated her (Khaleda) will check her health much like the board of specialised doctors that had been formed the last time did,” Kamal said.

The BNP chairperson has been serving a five-year sentence in jail in Old Dhaka since on Feb 8 when she was convicted in the Zia Orphanage Trust graft case.

The government has set up a special court inside the jailhouse to end the hearing on the Zia Welfare Trust graft case as Khaleda has been unable to appear in court for several months due to her ‘illness’.

She appeared in the special court in a wheelchair last week and told the court that she was ‘sick’.

“You can punish me as long as you want, but I cannot come here repeatedly in this condition,” the former prime minister said to the judge.

The BNP leadership has denounced the makeshift court as a violation of the constitution and said the government has forced her to appear in court.

A medical board had been formed to oversee Khaleda’s health after she fell ill near the beginning of April. The board said medical tests indicated that the illness was not serious.

Khaleda was taken to Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University Hospital for X-ray and blood tests on Apr 7. The BNP says it does not trust the medical board’s diagnosis.

Its delegation previously met the home minister twice on Mar 27 and Apr 23 to discuss the medical treatment.

The home minister said Khaleda was being given all the facilities as per the jail code.

The authorities allowed her domestic aide to assist her considering the BNP chief’s arthritis issue, Kamal said.

The former prime minister is also given physiotherapy and checked by a doctor and a pharmacist regularly, according to the minister.