‘I feel helpless’: India-Bangladesh tensions deny patients medical access | Health

Dhaka, Bangladesh – Khadiza Khatun’s life took a devastating flip in September when medical doctors at Dhaka Medical School Hospital knowledgeable her that her 37-year-old husband, Mohammad Nuri Alam, urgently wanted a liver transplant – a process unavailable in Bangladesh.

After cautious analysis, they determined to go to India’s Asian Institute of Gastroenterology in Hyderabad, a trusted vacation spot for a lot of Bangladeshi sufferers.

However three months later, they’re but to safe visas for the journey. Amid escalating tensions between India and Bangladesh for the reason that August ouster of Sheikh Hasina, an ally of New Delhi’s, from Dhaka, Indian authorities have considerably scaled again visa operations in Bangladesh.

The consequence: Khadiza and her husband have already missed two hospital appointments, on November 20 and December 20, and are uncertain about whether or not they’ll be capable of get to India in time for January 10, the subsequent date the medical facility in Hyderabad has given them.

“We’ve tried the whole lot since October – approaching journey companies, in search of assist from mates in authorities,” she instructed Al Jazeera. “India stays our solely hope.”

Confronted with unaffordable remedy choices in Thailand and different nations, Khadiza is left watching her husband’s well being deteriorate whereas counting on day by day symptomatic remedy in Dhaka hospitals – hoping that the brand new 12 months will carry her the visas her husband and he or she desperately want. “I really feel helpless, operating between hospitals and not using a resolution,” mentioned the mom of two.

Khadiza’s battle displays a bigger disaster affecting hundreds of Bangladeshi sufferers, who depend on India’s inexpensive healthcare, due to the visa restrictions launched by the Indian authorities. The Indian visa centre, on its web site, says that it is just “providing restricted appointment slots for Bangladesh nationals requiring pressing medical and pupil visas” and is “presently processing solely a restricted variety of visas of emergency and humanitarian nature”.

In keeping with an Indian visa centre official in Bangladesh, day by day on-line visa slots throughout 5 Indian visa centres in Bangladesh, together with Dhaka, have “plummeted to round 500” from over 7,000 for the reason that onset of the protests in July that led to Hasina’s elimination from workplace.

For a lot of Bangladeshis, like Khadiza, the true probability of getting visas feels even slimmer.

The slide in ties

India-Bangladesh relations have deteriorated since Hasina fled the nation for New Delhi on August 5 after a weeks-long student-led protest towards her more and more authoritarian rule.

India has since sheltered Hasina, straining ties – the interim Bangladesh authorities of Nobel laureate, Muhammad Yunus, final week despatched New Delhi a diplomatic notice in search of her extradition.

In the meantime, the Indian authorities has instructed Bangladesh it’s involved a few spate of attacks against Bangladeshi Hindus. Dhaka, on its half, insists that almost all assaults have been political in nature – towards perceived supporters of Sheikh Hasina – fairly than non secular of their character. Bangladesh has additionally accused Indian media channels of exaggerating the size of violence towards Hindus.

These tensions between the 2 governments have additionally impacted visa issuances. On August 26, a protest broke out on the Indian visa centre in Dhaka over processing delays, after the authority resumed “restricted operations” in protest-hit Bangladesh on August 13. Throughout the border, a Bangladeshi diplomatic mission within the northeast Indian metropolis of Agartala was attacked by a mob in early December, prompting a robust protest from Dhaka.

On January 1, the normally bustling premises of the Indian visa centre in Dhaka appeared practically abandoned. Only some candidates have been ready to submit their paperwork. Most candidates acquired calls to submit their visa functions and charges on the visa centre after manually offering a replica to the Indian Excessive Fee in Dhaka days earlier.

Nonetheless, Khadiza, who adopted the identical course of a month in the past, was unsuccessful. A visa centre official instructed Al Jazeera that the excessive fee has begun accepting extra emergency functions, although on-line submission choices stay restricted.

Some Bangladeshis, who delayed their journey to India for remedy as they waited for tensions to ease, are actually caught with expired visas.

“My and my spouse’s visas have been legitimate till December 10, however we didn’t journey then as a consequence of tensions over Bangladesh-related points in India,” mentioned 40-year-old Shariful Islam, from Joypurhat in northwestern Bangladesh.

Islam suffers from a lung illness. He and 5 different relations – every with their very own well being points, together with his spouse and father – have for the previous 4 years been travelling repeatedly to the japanese Indian metropolis of Kolkata and the southern metropolis of Vellore for medical remedy.

In a rural space of Joypurhat, Ridowan Hossain, who runs a visa assist company, has in the meantime been struggling to safe visa appointment slots for sufferers, together with a most cancers affected person urgently in search of remedy in India. Over 10 days, he repeatedly tried to finish the web utility course of however constantly confronted failures on the fee stage, he mentioned.

When he known as a helpline, he mentioned he was simply instructed to attempt once more.

“I course of over 300 Indian visas yearly, however I haven’t been capable of course of a single one since July,” he mentioned.

Now, many Bangladeshi sufferers are in search of different remedy choices in Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Turkiye.

Mazadul Noyon, supervisor of Suea Noi Match & Fly, a Bangkok-based medical and tour operator company, instructed Al Jazeera that inquiries from Bangladesh have doubled in comparison with earlier than August. “Though round 80 p.c of sufferers take into account Thailand after failing to safe an Indian visa, most abandon the concept upon studying of the 10-15 occasions increased prices in Thailand,” he mentioned.

For instance, the preliminary remedy price for Khadiza’s husband – overlaying prognosis, drugs, session, and associated bills – together with journey and lodging, would vary from US$1,000 to US$2,000 in India, in comparison with at the very least US$10,000 to US$15,000 in Thailand.

For a cardiac ring implant, prices in Thailand vary from $5,000 to $20,000 – relying on the hospital, excluding journey and lodging. In India, $2,000 covers top-quality rings and medical care. The price of these procedures is even increased in nations like Malaysia, Singapore and Turkiye, making them unaffordable for many Bangladeshis.

A lose-lose state of affairs

But it surely isn’t simply Bangladeshi sufferers who’re struggling – India’s “medical tourism” trade, which gives high-quality remedy to sufferers from the growing world at comparatively decrease costs than within the West, has taken a success too.

Trade knowledge exhibits that 60 p.c of India’s two million worldwide sufferers yearly are from Bangladesh. Nonetheless, since late August, the variety of Bangladeshi sufferers has dropped by 80 p.c. India’s medical tourism trade was price an estimated $9bn in 2023.

Amitabha Chattopadhyay, a paediatric heart specialist at Narayana Superspeciality Hospital in Kolkata, instructed Al Jazeera that his hospital has seen a 5 p.c decline in Bangladeshi sufferers.

“However the hospitals treating power circumstances are going through even larger challenges,” he mentioned.

Hospitals in Kolkata, the closest metropolis to Bangladesh and culturally comparable, are the worst affected.

At Peerless Hospital, a 500-bed multi-speciality hospital in Kolkata, day by day outpatient visits from Bangladeshi sufferers have dropped from 150 to beneath 30, with practically no admissions, The Print, an Indian digital publication, has reported, citing the hospital’s CEO, Sudipta Mitra.

Different key impacted hospitals embrace Narayana Well being in Bengaluru, Apollo in Chennai, and Christian Medical School in Vellore, in accordance with Alexander Thomas from the Affiliation of Healthcare Suppliers of India.

In the meantime, two hospitals in Kolkata and Tripura reportedly refused Bangladeshi sufferers, citing alleged disrespect to the Indian flag, additional straining ties, in accordance with native information reviews in early December.

‘Very troublesome’

Touhid Hossain, the performing head of Bangladesh’s Ministry of Overseas Affairs, acknowledged that the nation’s sufferers have been struggling due to Indian visa restrictions.

“Not simply troublesome. It has turn into very troublesome,” Hossain instructed Al Jazeera.

M Humayun Kabir, a former diplomat and president of Bangladesh Enterprise Institute who beforehand served on the Bangladesh mission in Kolkata, echoed this sentiment.

“Emergency visas have been imagined to be processed, however I’ve acquired reviews in any other case … It seems there hasn’t a lot alternative to acquire [Indian] visas,” he instructed Al Jazeera.

Bilateral relations seemed to be thawing when Indian Overseas Secretary Vikram Misri visited Dhaka on December 9, marking the primary high-level assembly between India and Bangladesh for the reason that current political modifications in Bangladesh.

Hossain confirmed that Bangladeshi authorities raised visa-related considerations with their Indian counterparts through the go to. “They assured us that they might improve visa issuance and prioritise pressing circumstances,” he mentioned.

But there was no change to date, say sufferers and visa brokers.

India’s Overseas Ministry and the Excessive Fee of India in Dhaka didn’t reply to a request from Al Jazeera for feedback on the criticism of New Delhi over visa restrictions.

However throughout a gathering with diplomatic correspondents in Dhaka on December 24, Indian Excessive Commissioner Pranay Verma claimed that India’s visa issuance in Bangladesh nonetheless surpasses that of “in all probability all different embassies mixed”.

He additionally mentioned that he stays optimistic about the way forward for Dhaka-New Delhi relations – a sentiment that Hossain, the de facto overseas minister of Bangladesh, echoed when talking with Al Jazeera.

Analysts, nonetheless, stay sceptical.

“Each events discuss good relations, however the actuality suggests in any other case,” mentioned Snigdhendu Bhattacharya, an unbiased Indian journalist specialising in South Asian points.

Kabir, the retired Bangladesh diplomat, mentioned he hoped the 2 governments would be capable of insulate visa issuances from their broader diplomatic tensions.

In the event that they don’t, the neighbours may face penalties, he cautioned.

“Such stances create a unfavorable mindset among the many public and might hurt long-term people-to-people relations,” Kabir mentioned.

However Khadiza doesn’t have the luxurious of ready for much longer.

“The visa assist company nonetheless hasn’t submitted the applying,” she mentioned, her voice heavy with disappointment. She’s mentally making ready herself for the replace that the applying couldn’t be submitted – even because the clock ticks away for Alam, her husband.