BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia urged the country’s people to pray for her as she is still sick, her medical board member Dr AZM Zahid Hossain said on Wednesday.

“The reality is that she (Khaleda) is ill. She underwent several tests. Please, you all pray for her recovery. She herself urged people to pray for her,” he said.

Talking to reporters in front of Khaleda’s Gulshan residence in the evening, Zahid bemoaned that some people make fun of the BNP chief's illness.  “The Almighty Allah can only give them the ability to understand the fact. If she hadn't been sick now, why would she have needed medical checkups? "

He said the person who went to Alia Madrasa ground walking on foot, has now become wheelchair-bound. “How well is she when she has to now move in a wheelchair? ”

READ: Khaleda undergoes medical tests at Evercare Hospital

Dr Zahid said Khaleda Zia was taken to the hospital for some tests as per the advice of the medical board.  “The medical board will decide on the next course of her treatment after reviewing the test reports.”

 He said the medical board formed in the Evercare Hospital for the treatment of the BNP chief feels she needs to go abroad for advanced treatment. “But the government is not allowing her to go there.”

Earlier, Khaleda arrived at the hospital from her Gulshan residence around 5pm and stayed there for an hour, said her media wing member Sayrul Kabir Khan.

 He said the BNP chairperson underwent several tests of her kidney, heart and liver at the hospital and then returned to her residence around 6:45pm.

 Khaleda, a 76-year-old former prime minister, has been suffering from various ailments, including liver cirrhosis, arthritis, diabetes, kidney, lung and eye problems.

 She was last admitted to Evercare Hospital on November 13 last year where she was diagnosed with liver cirrhosis.

 On February 1, she returned home after an 81-day stay in the hospital as she was suffering from internal bleeding caused by the liver cirrhosis problem.

 Khaleda was sent to the Old Dhaka Central Jail as a lower court sentenced her to five years’ imprisonment in 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 conditions that she will stay in her Gulshan house and will not leave the country.