Bangladesh’s former PM Khaleda Zia responding to treatment, no decision on foreign care

Bangladesh former PM Khaleda Zia

Bangladesh's critically ill former prime minister Khaleda Zia is "responding" to treatment, but no decision has yet been taken on whether she will be flown abroad for further medical care, her personal doctor said on Wednesday.

The 80-year-old Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) chairperson has been undergoing treatment at Dhaka's Evercare Hospital since November 23 for multiple health complications.

"She is being provided treatments which are needed for a critically ill patient,” Zia’s personal physician and BNP’s decision-making standing committee member, AZM Zahid Hossain, told reporters outside the private hospital.

“In medical terms, she is responding to the treatment as she did in the past,” he added, noting that foreign doctors are involved and medical-board decisions are being taken in nighttime meetings.

Hossain said the three-time prime minister is receiving care in the hospital's intensive care unit (ICU).

He said while a transfer abroad remains a possibility, no date has been fixed, urging people not to give in to speculation.

"The time has not yet come to give a definite date," the doctor said.

A medical board led by cardiologist Shahabuddin Talukder, and including specialists from Bangladesh, the UK, the US, and China, is supervising Zia's treatment.

Her daughter-in-law, Zubaida Rahman, a doctor by profession, has been attending the medical board's meetings in person since returning to Dhaka from London on December 5.

Zia last travelled to London, where her elder son and acting BNP chief Tarique Rahman lives, for treatment in January aboard an air ambulance from the Emir of Qatar's personal fleet.