Kolkata, Jul 15 (PTI) In another shocking allegation of negligence at TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee-promoted Sebashraay health camps, the parents of a three-year-old claimed on Wednesday that their daughter’s right arm was amputated at the shoulder after they were allegedly persuaded to undergo a misguided change in her treatment at the makeshift clinic.
The complaint, lodged at the Bishnupur Police Station in South 24 Parganas, names Banerjee as an accused alongside multiple others including former TMC Rajya Sabha MP Santanu Sen, now-arrested local MLA Dilip Mondal and Ayan Ghosh Dastidar, a staffer at Banerjee’s Camac Street office in Kolkata.
The allegation comes within days of a woman complaining before police that she lost a leg following a botched treatment for knee pain at a Sebaashray camp in the same district, with the state health department stepping in to probe the matter.
The parents of the toddler further alleged that the TMC had published pictures of the family, alongside the Diamond Harbour MP, as testimony to the “success” of Sebashraay in its pre-poll report card without their written or even verbal consent.
In her complaint, Ruma Manna, mother of three-and-a-half-year-old Kriti Manna, said her daughter was born with a rare and complicated intravenous ailment which hampered blood flow and was undergoing treatment and follow-up at AIIMS, New Delhi, since March 2024.
Manna claimed she and her husband, struggling to keep up with treatment costs, had approached Banerjee for medical and financial assistance. Instead, she said, the family was persuaded to continue treatment at Sebashraay camps.
The complainant stated that at the insistence of local TMC leaders, the family had subsequently visited three Sebashraay camps where doctors provided them with prescriptions. The leaders even arranged a meeting with Abhishek Banerjee at one of the camps, she stated.
“Despite me telling him (Banerjee) that all we seek is financial assistance to enable us to continue medical attention at the AIIMS, the MP assured us of improved treatment facilities at the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital,” she said.
“As a helpless mother with limited education, I reposed my trust in the elected representative and his office representatives and decided to continue with my daughter’s treatment in Bengal,” she wrote in her complaint.
She added that despite those assurances, the family received no special attention at RG Kar hospital and, following deterioration of her daughter’s condition, the facility, ironically, referred the patient back to AIIMS, New Delhi.
In a subsequent examination by a multi-disciplinary team of doctors at a Bengaluru-based hospital, Kriti was diagnosed with life-threatening advancement of the disease that had spread to other parts of the body, she alleged.
“The medical board first performed an embolisation to mitigate the threat to my daughter’s life and subsequently decided to perform a right shoulder disarticulation surgery on my daughter after finding that no other treatment avenues were open,” Manna said.
She demanded an “independent, impartial and scientific probe” into the case, focusing on those responsible for the alteration of treatment course, possible lapses in treatment and referral and the medical logic that went behind Kriti’s treatment at RG Kar hospital and its subsequent referral to AIIMS.
“Abhishek Banerjee is solely responsible for the family’s plight. He even marketed the kid for his own gains by printing her picture in a political pamphlet, violating the norms of the Juvenile Act. The family is now rightly seeking justice,” alleged BJP leader Abhijit Das.
Multiple FIRs have been lodged against Banerjee and his Sebashraay camps across Diamond Harbour over the past few weeks, alleging treatment goof-ups and conducting operations by flouting medical ethics and norms, prompting the state health department to constitute a special probe committee.
In a similar complaint lodged at the Rabindra Nagar PS on July 9, a Maheshtala patient Malati Biswas had alleged that her right leg from above the knee had to be ultimately amputated following a botched treatment at Sebashraay health camps where she was persuaded to visit by local TMC leaders for a knee joint pain she suffered from.
Health Minister Saradwat Mukherjee had earlier said that his department would assist the investigators in unearthing the truth behind the complaints.
“Why were such camps operated, if not to conduct a drama? To use them to benefit in electoral politics and as a political trump card. The people of Bengal paid the price for his electoral gains,” Mukhopadhyay had said in apparent reference to Abhishek Banerjee. PTI SMY NN
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