BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia returned home from Evercare Hospital on Thursday after receiving treatment for her various health complications for over five months.

The BNP chief left the hospital at 5pm and reached her Gulshan residence around an hour later, said BNP media cell member Sayrul Kabir Khan.

Party standing committee members Dr Abdul Moyeen Khan, Nazrul Islam Khan, and Selima Rahman received Khaleda as she reached her house.  

Khaleda’s personal physician and party vice-chairman Dr AZM Zahid Hossain said the BNP chief was taken back home as the medical board discharged her from the hospital.

Dr Zahid said the medical board will provide Khaleda with necessary treatment at her Gulshan's residence and all preparations have been made there in this regard.

On August 9 last year, she was admitted to the Evercare Hospital as she suddenly fell sick. The BNP Chief has been undergoing treatment there since then for various health complications.

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

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.

The US doctors--Hamid Rabb, Christos Georgiades, and James P A Hamilton from Johns Hopkins University's School of Medicine--went to Bangladesh on October 25 and decided to complete the TIPS procedure after assessing Khaleda’s health condition and test reports.

TIPS is a procedure that involves inserting a stent (tube) to connect the portal veins to adjacent blood vessels that have lower pressure. This relieves the pressure of blood flowing through the diseased liver and can help stop bleeding and fluid backup. A TIPS also relieves the high blood pressure in the portal vein (called portal hypertension) that often occurs in the setting of liver cirrhosis.

Khaleda’s doctors have been recommending sending Khaleda 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.