LONDON: Former prime minister and supreme leader of Pakistan’s main opposition party Nawaz Sharif was taken to a hospital in London on Wednesday afternoon for a series of scans and tests ahead of his medical treatment.

Mr Sharif, who arrived in London on Tuesday evening, stayed at the hospital for a few hours and left after his tests were conducted.

He was taken to Guys’ Hospital, an NHS hospital in the borough of Southwark in central London. The hospital is part of Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust and one of the institutions that comprise the King’s Health Partners, an academic health science centre.

The hospital has a private healthcare section where Mr Sharif went for consultation with experts in haematology. Haematology is a specialty covering the diagnosis and treatment of blood disorders, from conditions such as iron deficiency through to leukaemia. The hospital’s consultant haematologists specialise in general haematology and immune-haematology. Mr Sharif will undergo further tests and scans in the coming days before doctors decide on a course of treatment.

Family sources told Dawn that Mr Sharif appeared weak and got easily exerted due to his low platelet count. They also said that a treatment plan would be chalked out once doctors here accurately diagnosed his condition.

A six-member medical board, headed by Services Hospital Principal Ayaz Mahmood, last month diagnosed the reason for Mr Sharif’s declining health as acute immune thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP), a bleeding disorder, in which the immune system destroys platelets.

He was brought to London in an air ambulance after the interior ministry issued a notification allowing the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz supremo to travel abroad for medical treatment. In its notification, the ministry reproduced the undertakings provided by Nawaz Sharif and his brother Shahbaz Sharif to the Lahore High Court in which the terms of their travel and return had been laid out. The former prime minister’s name remains on the Exit Control List.

Published in Dawn, November 21st, 2019