Pak doctor couple beaten by police as their daughter dies before them

LONDON: A British Pakistani doctor who was assaulted at his child’s hospital bedside along with his doctor wife has said that he decided to speak out to save others from discrimination and hate.

Both Rashid Abbasi, a graduate of Dow Medical College Karachi, and his wife Doctor Aliya Abbasi, were subjected to violence by the Northumbria police as they sat by their six-year-old daughter Zainab’s hospital bedside while doctors wanted them to leave the room so her life support could be switched off for her to die.

The couple spoke to The News exclusively at their home in Country Durham, near the Scottish border.

The horrific footage, publicised widely on British and international media this week, shows Pakistani doctor being dragged away from his daughter’s bedside, handcuffed and beaten by the four policemen – while the local hospital’s staff stood by after calling the police over to remove the couple from their daughter’s bedside.

Doctor Rashid Abbasi said that his wife was assaulted first by the police and then he came under attack.

Zainab, 6, had complex needs due to a rare degenerative condition and doctors had told the couple that she had only a few hours to survive. She died a week after her parents were forcibly removed from the hospital exactly a year ago. There were reporting restrictions in place on the incident and Abbasis had to fight a complex legal battle to be able to tell their story to the world and to obtain footage from the police.

The National Health Service (NHS) hospital trust cannot be named for legal reasons but said the decision to involve police was never taken lightly.

Dr Abbasi explained that Zainab suffered from Niemann-Pick disease and the after-effects of swine flu, which she contracted when she was two and then in 2018 she had a flare-up of her lung condition after a viral infection.

Doctors advised the couple that it would be “kind” to let her go as she had no chance of survival.

However, he says the couple advised doctors on what treatment to give Zainab and on both occasions she responded well and defied analysis of the doctors.

Last year, the couple told the doctors not to take her off the ventilator as she was doing fine and responding fine. She was hospitalised in the summer of 2019 and was put on life support at the family's local hospital, in the north-east of England.