North Bengal Lobby: Bengal Health Department suspends 2 doctors close aides of Ex-RG Kar Principal
Kolkata: After gaining media attention due to multiple allegations of misconduct and alleged involvement with the North Bengal Lobby, the West Bengal Health Department on Thursday suspended two doctors also known to be close confidants of controversial former principal of R G Kar Medical College and Hospital, Sandip Ghosh, who is presently in the custody of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for his alleged involvement in financial irregularities at the state-run hospital when he in charge of its affairs.
These two doctors- Dr Avik De, the resident medical officer (RMO) in the radiodiagnosis department of Burdwan Medical College, and Dr Birupaksha Biswas, the senior resident doctor attached to the pathology department of the same hospital who was transferred on Wednesday.
The suspension order of these two doctors was issued after several allegations of irregularities, misconduct, and being part of the North Bengal Lobby across medical colleges.
Dr Avik de who is a first-year postgraduate trainee of the surgery department at Seth Sukhlal Karnani Memorial Hospital (SSKM), Kolkata was earlier referred to as a Finger Print Expert by the Kolkata police when a photo of his presence at the seminar room on the third floor of the Emergency Building of RG Kar Medical College and Hospital on August 9 went viral where the body of the junior doctor who was raped and murdered was found.
Medical dialogues team had earlier reported that the West Bengal state branch of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) challenged the claim and slammed the police department for referring him as the Fingerprint expert after the association found that he was a PG trainee doctor. Meanwhile, he is also accused of being part of the health syndicate.
Similarly, Birupaksha Biswas who was not posted at RG Kar Hospital was found in the seminar room on the day of the incident. A few days ago, an audio clip of him threatening an intern to cancel his registration if he flags issues concerning some doctors in the hospital went viral. Refuting the allegations, he claimed that it was AI-generated and not his voice.
On Wednesday, Biswas was transferred from Burdwan Medical College in East Burdwan district to the Kakdwip Sub-divisional Hospital in South 24 Parganas district.
As per The Telegraph, both the suspended doctors were accused of being part of the 'North Bengal Lobby' that manipulated appointments in government hospitals and threatened students and faculty members who spoke against them.
Ever since the ghastly rape and murder of a junior doctor at the R G Kar Medical College and Hospital last month, several junior doctors have accused De and Biswas, both close to Ghosh, of introducing a “threat culture” where junior doctors and interns were threatened unless they acted as directed by the duo.
On Tuesday evening, the day after Ghosh was taken into custody by the CBI, the Health Department issued a notification suspending him from state medical services because of the ongoing probe against him. The following day, Ghosh moved the Supreme Court challenging the CBI probe into the alleged financial irregularities.
As per the IANS report, there had been several complaints of financial irregularities at R G Kar Medical College when Ghosh was at the helm of affairs as its principal. The charges include tendering of different contracts to private and outsourced parties of his confidence without getting the necessary approval from the Health Department and the college council; getting infrastructure-related tasks of the hospital done by private outsourced entities or individuals, instead of following the standard practice of getting them done by the Public Works Department (PWD); and selling biomedical wastes of the hospital, including organs of the unidentified bodies coming to the mortuary for post-mortem purposes, outside.
