Online Desk: BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia will be taken to Evercare Hospital in the capital after iftar on Wednesdays for health checks-ups.

BNP Chairperson’s personal doctor AZM Zahid Hossain confirmed the matter and said after 33 days she is going to the hospital to undergo some medical tests.

Her medical board will decide whether she needs to be hospitalised further after observing her health condition and assessing the test reports.

On January 11, the BNP chief returned home from Evercare Hospital after receiving treatment for various health complications for over five months.

Since then, she has been receiving treatment at her Gulshan residence under the medical board that was formed earlier at the Evercare Hospital.

On August 9 last year, she was admitted to the hospital as she fell sick.

The 78-year-old former prime minister has long been suffering from various ailments, including liver cirrhosis, arthritis, diabetes, and issues related to kidney, lung, heart, and eye.

On October 26, three US specialist doctors completed the hepatic procedure known as transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt (TIPS procedure) to stop water accretion in Khaleda Zia’s stomach and chest, and bleeding in her liver.

Khaleda’s doctors have been recommending sending her abroad since she was diagnosed with liver cirrhosis in November 2021.

The BNP chief’s family also sought permission from the government on different occasions, but the Law Minister said Khaleda has no scope to go abroad for treatment as she was released on conditions suspending her sentence in corruption cases.

Since her conditional release from jail in 2020, the BNP chief has been receiving treatment at the hospital under a medical board headed by cardiologist Prof Shahabuddin Talukder.

Khaleda was sent to the Old Dhaka Jail after a lower court sentenced her to five years’ imprisonment in the Zia Orphanage Trust corruption case on February 8, 2018. Later, she was found guilty in another corruption case the same year.

Amid the coronavirus outbreak, the government temporarily freed Khaleda Zia from jail through an executive order suspending her sentence on March 25, 2020, with the condition that she stay in her Gulshan house and not leave the country. That has since been extended multiple times to keep her out of jail.