LONDON: A British Pakistani doctor who was manhandled 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 force 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.
The couple spoke to The News exclusively at their home in County Durham. The disturbing footage, publicised widely on the media this week, shows the Pakistani doctor being dragged away from his daughter’s bedside, handcuffed and manhandled by 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 forced 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 said 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.
He told The News three days before the incident, Zainab watched three TV shows of her choice. He said she was holding his hand and communicating all the time when she needed. She was communicating through her hand movement and eyes, he added.
Dr Abbasi and his wife, both senior surgeons in the NHS, had a meeting with the doctors for about 25 minutes where they were told that she will be put off the ventilator. Dr Abbasi said he knew the doctors had made up their mind that they will take off the life support and that is why he moved to be by her side. The doctors did not like that, he said, and they asked the police to come and remove them.
Within minutes, four officers from the Northumbria Police arrived while Dr Abbasi was holding his daughter’s hand at her bedside; Dr Aliya Abbasi and the couple’s teenage son sat there. The police asked the parents to step away.
Dr Abbasi told the police that being an NHS doctor he knew about his rights and that the police had no legal grounds to order him to move from there because he had done nothing wrong and was there because as a parent he had right to be with his daughter.
He told The News: “I didn’t want to move from there because I knew that they will take my daughter off the life support. That’s exactly what they wanted to do. The hospital staff lied to the police that I was being disruptive and aggressive. That’s not true. I was only standing up for my rights, for rights of my daughter.”
The first policeman dragged Dr Aliya to the floor after she asked the police officers not to remove her husband. Dr Aliya said: “I was told that I should not speak as it was not about me but my husband. I was pinned on a chair by two security guards. They didn’t respect my rights as a Muslim woman, as a woman, as a member of the public. They held me back with so much force that I was left with bruises on my arms and I had to get medical treatment for the injury caused by the heavy handed security team.”
Dr Aliya said she saw how her husband was dragged down to the ground and mishandled by the police. When I cried for help they drew the curtain so I couldn’t see what the police were doing to him. She said: “They drew the curtain while pinning me on the chair by force but I could hear screams of my husband as he was beaten by the police.” She added: “I requested to the police that he’s a heart patient but they didn’t care and didn’t want to listen. They were ruthless in how they treated my husband.”
Dr Abbasi was detained and then released after the police realised that he has suffered a heart attack. He has never been charged of any crime.
He said: “We are still living the nightmare, I still wake up in the middle of the night feeling someone is pulling a tube from my daughter and tightening my handcuffs.”
Christian Legal Aid has started legal action against the hospital trust and has written to the police to apologise or else face court action. He told The News: “We had the option of staying quiet but we have decided to take a stand for our Zainab and for everyone else in this country. No parent should go through what we have been made to suffer.”
The trust said: “It is essential that we maintain a safe and secure environment for our patients and families. Our staff always go to strenuous lengths to ensure that families’ wishes are respected, and that they are supported as they approach the end of their child’s life, and make all possible efforts to ensure this is peaceful and dignified.”
Northumbria Police said: “We… responded to a call of a man being violent and abusive towards staff and that he had assaulted a consultant.
“While we recognised this was a very distressing time for him and his family, our duty was to ensure the safety of all those present.
“We are … in the process of reviewing a civil claim, so it would be inappropriate to comment any further.”
