International Courant
Dhaka, Bangladesh – Khadiza Khatun’s life took a devastating flip in September when medical doctors on the Dhaka Medical Faculty Hospital knowledgeable her that her 37-year-old husband, Mohammad Nuri Alam, urgently wanted a liver transplant – a process not obtainable in Bangladesh .
After cautious analysis, they determined to go to India’s Asian Institute of Gastroenterology in Hyderabad, a well-recognized vacation spot for a lot of Bangladeshi sufferers.
However three months later they nonetheless have to rearrange a visa for the journey. Amid escalating tensions between India and Bangladesh for the reason that August ouster of Sheikh Hasina, an ally of New Delhi, from Dhaka, Indian authorities have considerably scaled again visa operations in Bangladesh.
The end result: Khadiza and her husband have already missed two hospital appointments, on November 20 and December 20, and are uncertain whether or not they’ll be capable to get to India in time for January 10, the following date the medical facility in Hyderabad has. given to them.
“We’ve tried all the pieces since October – approaching journey brokers, searching for assist from associates within the authorities,” she informed Al Jazeera. “India stays our solely hope.”
Confronted with unaffordable therapy choices in Thailand and different international locations, Khadiza watches her husband’s well being deteriorate as she depends on every day symptomatic therapy in hospitals in Dhaka – hoping that the New Yr will carry her the visas she and her husband work so laborious to acquire. want. “I really feel helpless, working between hospitals with no resolution,” mentioned the mom of two.
Khadiza’s battle displays a bigger disaster affecting hundreds of Bangladeshi sufferers who depend on reasonably priced healthcare in India as a consequence of visa restrictions carried out by Indian authorities. The Indian Visa Middle says on its web site that it solely affords “a restricted variety of appointments to Bangladeshi nationals requiring emergency medical and pupil visas” and is “presently processing solely a restricted variety of emergency and humanitarian visas.”
In keeping with an official at an Indian visa heart in Bangladesh, every day on-line visa slots at 5 Indian visa facilities in Bangladesh, together with Dhaka, have “dropped to round 500” from over 7,000 for the reason that begin of the protests in July that led to Hasina’s resignation . .
For a lot of Bangladeshis, like Khadiza, the true probability of acquiring a visa appears even smaller.
The often busy premises of the Indian Visa Middle in Dhaka, Bangladesh, had only a few candidates on January 1, 2025 (Moudud Ahmmed Sujan/Al Jazeera)
The slide in tires
Relations between India and Bangladesh have deteriorated since Hasina fled the nation for New Delhi on August 5 following a weeks-long student-led protest in opposition to her more and more authoritarian rule.
India has since sheltered Hasina, straining ties. The interim Bangladesh authorities of Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus despatched New Delhi a diplomatic observe final week requesting her extradition.
In the meantime, the Indian authorities has informed Bangladesh it’s involved a couple of wave of assaults on Bangladeshi Hindus. For its half, Dhaka insists that a lot of the assaults had been political in nature – in opposition to alleged supporters of Sheikh Hasina – slightly than non secular in nature. Bangladesh has additionally accused Indian media shops of exaggerating the extent of violence in opposition to Hindus.
These tensions between the 2 governments have additionally affected visa issuance. On August 26, a protest broke out on the Indian Visa Middle 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 northeastern Indian metropolis of Agartala was attacked by a mob in early December, prompting sturdy protests from Dhaka.
On January 1, the often busy premises of the Indian Visa Middle in Dhaka appeared nearly abandoned. Only some candidates had been ready to submit their paperwork. Most candidates obtained calls to submit their visa purposes and charges on the visa heart after manually offering a duplicate to the Indian Excessive Fee in Dhaka days earlier.
Nevertheless, Khadiza, who adopted the identical course of a month in the past, was not profitable. A visa heart official informed Al Jazeera that the excessive fee has began accepting extra emergency purposes, though on-line submission choices stay restricted.
Some Bangladeshis, who postponed their journey to India for therapy in anticipation of easing tensions, are actually caught with expired visas.
“Mine and my spouse’s visas had 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 issues, together with his spouse and father – have traveled often to the jap Indian metropolis of Kolkata and the southern metropolis of Vellore for medical therapy over the previous 4 years.
In the meantime, in a rural space of Joypurhat, Ridowan Hossain, who runs a visa help company, is struggling to rearrange visa appointments for sufferers, together with a most cancers affected person searching for pressing therapy in India. Over the course of 10 days, he repeatedly tried to finish the web utility course of however continued to come across failures on the fee stage, he mentioned.
When he referred to as a helpline, he mentioned he was informed to strive once more.
“I course of greater than 300 Indian visas yearly, however I’ve not been capable of course of one since July,” he mentioned.
Now many Bangladeshi sufferers are on the lookout for various therapy choices in Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Turkiye.
Mazadul Noyon, supervisor of Suea Noi Match & Fly, a Bangkok-based medical and tour operator company, informed Al Jazeera that the variety of inquiries from Bangladesh has doubled in comparison with earlier than August. “Whereas about 80 % of sufferers take into account Thailand after failing to safe an Indian visa, most abandon the concept once they hear of the 10-15 instances greater prices in Thailand,” he mentioned.
For instance, preliminary therapy prices for Khadiza’s husband – together with prognosis, medicines, session and associated prices – together with journey and lodging prices would vary from $1,000 to $2,000 in India, in comparison with at the least $10,000 to $15,000 in Thailand. .
For a coronary heart ring implant, the fee in Thailand ranges from $5,000 to $20,000 – relying on the hospital, excluding journey and lodging prices. In India, $2000 covers high quality rings and medical care. The price of these procedures is even greater in international locations like Malaysia, Singapore and Turkiye, making them unaffordable for many Bangladeshis.
Ridowan Hossain, who runs a visa help company in Joypurhat, Bangladesh, is struggling to rearrange appointments for his purchasers (Moudud Ahmmed Sujan/Al Jazeera)
A lose-lose state of affairs
However it’s not simply Bangladeshi sufferers who’re struggling: India’s “medical tourism” trade, which supplies high-quality remedies to sufferers from the growing world at comparatively decrease costs than within the West, has additionally taken a success.
Business knowledge exhibits that 60 % of India’s two million worldwide sufferers yearly are from Bangladesh. Nevertheless, for the reason that finish of August, the variety of Bangladeshi sufferers has fallen by 80 %. The Indian medical tourism trade was estimated to be price $9 billion by 2023.
Amitabha Chattopadhyay, a pediatric heart specialist at Narayana Superspeciality Hospital in Kolkata, informed Al Jazeera that his hospital has seen a 5 % decline within the variety of Bangladeshi sufferers.
“However hospitals treating power circumstances face even larger challenges,” he mentioned.
Hospitals in Kolkata, the closest metropolis to Bangladesh and culturally comparable, are the worst hit.
At Peerless Hospital, a 500-bed multi-specialty hospital in Kolkata, every day outpatient visits of Bangladeshi sufferers have fallen from 150 to lower than 30, with nearly no admissions, studies The Print, an Indian digital publication, citing the Hospital CEO: Sudipta Mitra.
Different main affected hospitals embrace Narayana Well being in Bengaluru, Apollo in Chennai and Christian Medical Faculty in Vellore, in accordance with Alexander Thomas of the Affiliation of Healthcare Suppliers of India.
In the meantime, two hospitals in Kolkata and Tripura reportedly turned away Bangladeshi sufferers, citing alleged disrespect for the Indian flag, additional straining ties, native information studies confirmed in early December.
Activists from Bajrang Dal, a Hindu majority group, carry a defaced symbolic flag of Bangladesh throughout a protest in opposition to alleged assaults on Hindus in Bangladesh, in Ahmedabad, India, Wednesday, December 11, 2024 (Ajit Solanki/AP Picture)
‘Very troublesome’
Touhid Hossain, performing head of Bangladesh’s international ministry, acknowledged that the nation’s sufferers had been struggling as a consequence of Indian visa restrictions.
“Not simply troublesome. It has develop into very troublesome,” Hossain informed Al Jazeera.
M Humayun Kabir, a former diplomat and president of the Bangladesh Enterprise Institute who beforehand served on the Bangladesh Mission in Kolkata, echoed this sentiment.
“Emergency visas had been purported to be processed, however I’ve obtained messages in any other case… It appears there aren’t many choices to acquire (Indian) visas,” he informed Al Jazeera.
Bilateral ties appeared to thaw when Indian Overseas Minister Vikram Misri visited Dhaka on December 9, marking the primary high-level assembly between India and Bangladesh since latest political modifications in Bangladesh.
Hossain confirmed that Bangladeshi authorities had raised visa-related issues with their Indian counterparts through the go to. “They assured us that they might improve visa issuance and prioritize pressing instances,” he mentioned.
But there was no change to date, sufferers and visa brokers say.
India’s Overseas Ministry and the Indian Excessive Fee in Dhaka didn’t reply to a request from Al Jazeera for touch upon New Delhi’s criticism over visa restrictions.
However throughout a gathering with diplomatic correspondents in Dhaka on December 24, Indian Excessive Commissioner Pranay Verma claimed that Indian visa issuance in Bangladesh nonetheless exceeds that of “in all probability all different embassies mixed”.
He additionally mentioned he stays optimistic about the way forward for relations between Dhaka and New Delhi – a sentiment that Hossain, Bangladesh’s de facto international minister, echoed when talking to Al Jazeera.
Nevertheless, analysts stay skeptical.
“Either side discuss good relations, however the actuality suggests in any other case,” mentioned Snachtigendu Bhattacharya, an unbiased Indian journalist specializing in South Asian points.
Kabir, the retired Bangladeshi diplomat, mentioned he hoped the 2 governments might insulate the visa issuance from their broader diplomatic tensions.
If they do not, neighbors might face penalties, he warned.
“Such views create a adverse mentality among the many public and may harm relations between folks in the long term,” Kabir mentioned.
However Khadiza does not have the luxurious of ready for much longer.
“The visa workplace nonetheless hasn’t submitted the appliance,” she mentioned, her voice deep with disappointment. She mentally prepares herself for the replace that the appliance can’t be submitted – even because the clock ticks away for Alam, her husband.
‘I really feel helpless’: tensions between India and Bangladesh deny sufferers medical entry | Well being
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