Abul Bajandar, nicknamed ‘Tree Man’ for the rare bark-like warts on his hands and legs, has left the Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) without informing the authorities.
DMCH authorities suspect he left some time after Saturday midnight. The nurses found his bed empty the next morning.
When Khulna Bajandar was admitted to the DMCH in 2016, he couldn’t even eat with his hands. His mother or wife used to feed him.
The warts had forced the 25-year-old father of one to stop pulling rickshaw van, the source of his income, when he was a teen.
He had undergone several rounds of surgeries at the DMCH Burns and Plastic Surgery Unit, doctors have managed to remove the warts, but say more surgeries will be needed for a complete recovery.
“Abul Bajandar has left without informing anyone,” Burn and Plastic Surgery Unit Coordinator Shamanta Lal Sen told Bangla Tribune.
“He wanted to leave, but I told him we will need to do several more surgeries. And he was supposed to let us know his decision on Saturday, when I was informed that he left.”

Bangla Tribune caught up with Bajandar over phone, when he claimed that the doctors told him that he will never fully recover. “According to them, it will come back once again after surgeries. Besides that, I was facing problems regarding food and accommodation.”

Bajandar says he once again admitted at the DMCH on May 8. “But we came back on Saturday.”

Bajandar, who appeared to be disappointed over the phone, said, the warts were growing back again. “The doctors say that it’s a genetic problem and they would perform more surgeries.”

His wife Halima Khatun echoed. “Doctors said he will not fully recover and that they will perform more surgeries. He has already undergone 25 surgeries. That’s why we left," she told Bangla Tribune.

Expatriate journalist Fazlul Bari was behind bringing Bajandar to Dhaka for treatment after a news report caught his attention.

Asked whether Bari was informed, Bajandar said, “I informed him. He advised me to stay Dhaka and go for further treatment.”

Bajandar did not even inform Kazi Bahar, a Dhaka resident who was in charge of him, before leaving.

“They are a bit disappointed with me. I have explained the reasons, but he, too, asked to continue with the treatment whatever happens.”

Kazi Bahar told Bangla Tribune that Bajandar had been asking to leave. “At one point, I got fed up and asked him not to contact me anymore.”

Dr Sharfuddin, who also was one of Bajandar’s contact persons in Dhaka, said, “He had heard from somewhere that he will not fully recover. He told me that everyone behaves rudely with him. I tried to make him understand. But still he wanted to leave.”
In 2008, a man with similar conditions was found in Indonesia after the CNN reported it.
It said doctors believed the case was created by a genetically inherited immune defect and a type of human papillomavirus, or HPV.
There are hundreds of types of HPV, some of which are linked to cervical cancer and others that cause common warts that can be acquired through cuts, CNN said.
DMCH Burn and Plastic Surgery unit chief Sen told the media in 2016, when Bajandar was brought them, that only two cases had been found so far – one in Romania and the other in Indonesia.
He said he came to know that the Indonesian patient recovered from surgery in 2009.