A Surrey cardiologist is stranded in Nepal with her newly adopted child while she waits anxiously for Canada to issue documents so she can bring her daughter home and return to her busy practice.

Dr. Salima Shariff appealed to Immigration Minister Jason Kenney for help this week, saying she is in a critically difficult situation, torn between her responsibilities as a new mother and a physician whose services are in great demand.

"I have a duty and obvious attachment as a new mother to my 14-month-old dependent adopted infant in Nepal and professional duties and responsibilities to my patients and colleagues as a cardiologist in Canada," wrote Shariff, who has been in Nepal for the past two months.

"I am pleading with you to look into my case with compassion and understanding."

Shariff and her husband, Aziz Nurmohamed, left Canada on Sept. 17 after receiving word from the Victoria-based adoption agency that was guiding them through the process that the paperwork was all but complete and they should prepare to claim their new toddler.

Canada was in the final stages of issuing a permanent residency visa, Shariff was told. But shortly after she and her husband took custody of their little girl on Oct. 5 as legal parents, they got the bad news: Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) had not yet recognized the Nepali adoption process.

They were stunned, as was the adoption agency that had helped them and Shariff's colleagues at Surrey Memorial Hospital.

"She did everything by the book," Dr. Sally Barrio said in an interview Thursday. "She followed the rules to the T, but she's been caught in this bureaucratic thing."

The most difficult part is that no one has told her what needs to be done to clear the way for their return to Canada, or how long it will take, Shariff says in the four-page letter.

Cheryl Fix, executive director for Choices Adoption and Counselling, said the adoption process was progressing smoothly for Shariff, her husband and a family from Ontario until this month. She said she doesn't understand the delay in Canadian approval, especially given that the United States gave a green light to Nepali adoptions this fall.

"I would assume that the U.S. has equal due diligence. . . . If they're satisfied, I'm a bit perplexed why we aren't."

Political instability has made Nepali adoptions high-risk, Fix acknowledged, and all adoptions were halted for some time because of concerns about child trafficking. But they reopened at the start of the year and Fix's agency was one of two in Canada that were accredited.

In her letter, Shariff describes her anguish at being in limbo.

"I have professional responsibilities to my colleagues and to my patients," she said, noting that she and seven other cardiologists at Surrey Memorial provide 24-hour care, seven days a week for acute cardiac emergencies. She also has a busy practice with a year-long waiting list for new patients.

Her husband, an accountant, is also required to return to work soon, she adds.

"For the past two months, I have been doing my best to care for my daughter in a hotel room in a foreign country that isn't my home. The emotional burden of this is proving to be very difficult."

The Vancouver Sun requested an interview with Kenney but was referred to the CIC office in Vancouver.

Shariff's colleagues are anxious for her return. "She's probably the most favourite physician in this entire hospital," Barrio said.

"If you want to have 150 people phoning you and telling you how great she is, they will do that."

Shariff was profiled in a local newspaper a couple of years ago, which noted that she chose to work in Surrey after graduating with a cardiology fellowship at the University of B.C., despite being courted by the prestigious Mayo Clinic.

jsteffenhagen@vancouversun.com