Enamul Hafiz Latifee writes,
Abdul Mabud Chowdhury, a consultant urologist at Homerton hospital in Hackney east London, died on Wednesday night after spending 15 days in Queen’s hospital in Romford. He was admitted in the hospital on 23 March 2020. He contracted the coronavirus weeks after pleading to the prime minister for more personal protective equipment for frontline staff.
Last month he wrote a Facebook message to Boris Johnson outlining the urgent need for PPE for frontline staff and calling for testing for healthcare workers to be fast-tracked.
He wrote: “Dear and respectable Prime Minister Mr Boris Johnson, Please ensure urgently PPE for each and every NHS health worker.”
He told Johnson that healthcare workers “are in direct contact with patients” and have a “human right like others to live in this world disease-free with our family and children”.
Chowdhury’s Family friend doctor Golam Rahat Khan said Dr Chowdhury had been worried about coronavirus “long before” it reached the UK. “He was telling me and other friends that coronavirus was very dangerous,” he said.
Dr Khan, 45, who has known Dr Chowdhury for nearly 20 years, described him as a “life-loving person”. He added, “He liked singing and liked our own Bengali culture and loved English heritage”. He was so caring, he would call us very often to come to his house.
“I last saw him on February 1 at my house for my son’s eighth birthday”, Dr Khan added. He also said none of Dr Chowdhury’s relatives were with him when he died at around 10.35pm at Queen’s Hospital in Romford.
Dr Chowdhury, who worked at Homerton University Hospital in London, and left his wife and two children aged 18 and 11.
Paying tribute, Homerton University Hospital’s chief executive, Tracey Fletcher said, “Abdul will be greatly missed by every member of the urology department, as well as by all those who knew him in outpatients, wards, theatres and management.
Philip Glanville, the Labour mayor of Hackney, hailed Chowdhury as a “hero” who died serving the borough. In a tweet he added: “I hope his death wasn’t as a result of continuing issues around testing & PPE, but it raises questions. A sobering reminder of the lives being lost to keep us safe & the contribution BAME staff make.”
Chowdhury, who was born in Bangladesh, was 53 and had no underlying health conditions.