Terminally ill doc asked to undergo ‘unnecessary’ tests

Kolkata: An assistant professor of general medicine suffering from stage IV pancreatic cancer and seeking VRS has accused the head of the medical board of harassment. The board is supposed to certify that the professor, Dr Kalyan De Chaudhuri, 55, is eligible for VRS due to his health. Officials at Swasthya Bhawan have assured De Chaudhuri of intervention.

De Chaudhuri is attached with Malda Medical College and had applied for VRS a few months ago. He is undergoing treatment for pancreatic adenocarcinoma stage IV with liver metastasis at Tata Medical Centre and was asked to appear before a medical board at Medical College and Hospital, Kolkata, (MCH) on May 16. De Chaudhuri alleged that he was asked to undergo a number of tests by Dr Shibashish Bhattacharya, the head of medical oncology at MCH.

“The rest of the doctors at the medical board were very empathetic. But Bhattacharya refused to see investigative reports from NABL-accredited laboratories done only a week ago and insisted that I get those done again at MCH. He added that further investigation had to be carried out,” De Chaudhuri told TOI.

De Chauduri alleged that he was asked to get several other investigations, like NCV echocardiography, and a few biochemical and haematological investigations, which, many doctors feel are not necessarily for a stage IV cancer patient. In fact, one of the doctors on the medical board reportedly even wrote a dissent note saying the tests were not necessary.

“My doctors have told me that prognosis of metastatic pancreatic cancer could be bad and it is almost incurable. The disease and 12 rounds of chemotherapy have already taken away all my energy. Now if I have to under undergo all these tests again, it will suck out whatever life remains in me,” the assistant professor said.

“A little bit of empathy could have eased the pain of a stage IV cancer patient. This is absolutely inhuman,” said Dr Kuashik Chaki, secretary of West Bengal Doctors’ Forum (WBDF).

When contacted, Bhattacharya insisted that the medical board will go by investigative reports from government institutions. “The patient is undergoing treatment in a private hospital and all the investigation reports that he brought were from private institutes. That is the reason he was asked to undergo a few tests,” he said.

On Friday, at the behest of De Chauduri, WBDF approached state health secretary Rajiva Sinha who promised to look into the matter. “This matter has been brought to my notice and we are looking into it,” Sinha told TOI.