Kolkata, Jul 12: The West Bengal Health Department has launched an inquiry following a police complaint against Trinamool Congress general secretary and Lok Sabha MP Abhishek Banerjee over the now-defunct Sebaashray healthcare outreach initiative, after a woman alleged that her right leg had to be amputated due to alleged medical negligence during treatment at one of the camps in South 24 Parganas.

Following the complaint registered by Malati Biswas at Rabindra Nagar Police Station on Friday, the state health department decided to commence a parallel and independent investigation.

“The affected woman and her family members will arrive with all relevant documents in the matter at the Swasthya Bhavan, the state health department headquarters, by 11 a.m. on Monday. Senior officials of the state health department will listen to their points in the matter, examine the documents and take necessary action accordingly,” a state health department official said.

Meanwhile, based on the complaint filed by Biswas, the cops at the Rabindra Nagar Police Station have also started an investigation into the matter after registering an FIR against Abhishek Banerjee, his absconding executive assistant, Sumit Roy and others.

In the complaint filed at Rabindra Nagar Police Station under the Diamond Harbour Police district, Biswas had claimed she went to the 'Sebaashray' free health camp with a complaint of knee pain, and the doctor there prescribed her some medicines.

However, as per the police complaint, instead of getting better, her knee pain aggravated, following which she went to the 'Sebaashray' health camp again. But this time, instead of treating her, the doctors referred her to the MR Bangur Hospital on the Southern outskirts of Kolkata.

The doctors at MR Bangur, as per the police complaint, told her that her knee condition had deteriorated because of the wrong medicines being prescribed to her. Thereafter, she was referred to the National Medical College & Hospital at Park Circus in central Kolkata.

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Meanwhile, the condition deteriorated further, and finally her right limb had to be amputated.

Thereafter, she contacted the 'Sebaashray' authorities again, seeking an explanation for the wrong medication. However, they totally ignored her, and her repeated attempts to contact Abhishek Banerjee did not yield any result.

Since the change of regime in West Bengal, there have been a total of 17 complaints registered against 'Sebaashray', including the one from Malati Biswas. The police had also started an investigation into the matter by filing two separate FIRs.

The complaints are varied. While the majority are related to medical negligence and wrong line of treatment, there are complaints about running such camps without authorisation from the state health department, allegedly hiring unqualified doctors at these camps and the alleged distribution of expired medicines.

(IANS)