Medical Council of India (MCI) has pulled up Dr Nirmal Maji, president of West Bengal Medical Council (WBMC) and state minister in Mamata Banerjee’s cabinet, professor (Dr) R N Pandey, vice chancellor (VC) of West Bengal University of Health Sciences (WBHS) and Dr Pradip kumar Mitra, former director of medical education (DME) for their involvement in conducting a dialysis of a dog at the state-run SSKM Hospital in 2015.
Following a complaint lodged by the US-based NRI Dr Kunal Saha with the MCI four years ago the council has condemned the move by pulling up Dr Maji, Dr Mitra, who was the director of SSKM as well Institute of Post Graduate Medical Education & Research (IPGME&R) in 2015, and Dr Pandey, health university VC and head of nephrology department at the hospital. Dr Mitra had decided to conduct the dialysis on the dog after Dr Maji recommended them to start the medical treatment on the animal at the nephrology department of SSKM.
Dr Arpita Roychowdhury, another professor of the nephrology department at SSKM, had reportedly protested against the move. The MCI order said, “The Committee deliberated upon the matter and perused the document available and noted that the three doctors were involved in hatching a plan to perform dialysis of a pet dog using the dialysis machine at SSKM Hospital, Kolkata”. “The MCI Ethics Committee has issued a recent order against Dr Maji, Dr Pandey and Dr Mitra for their deliberate attempt to perform dialysis of a pet dog at SSKM Hospital in 2015,” Dr Saha said.