A team of high-level government officials along with top cops on Monday evening allegedly carried out a raid at the office of West Bengal Clinical Establishment Regulatory Commission (WBCERC), an autonomous body in BBD Bag, looking after grievances of patients in connection with alleged negligence in their treatment and exorbitant charges in private healthcare facilities, keeping its chairman Justice Asim Banerjee and other senior officials, completely in dark.
Aggrieved and ‘humiliated’ Justice Banerjee, a retired judge of the Calcutta High Court, has informed the matter reportedly to the chief minister, Mamata Banerjee.
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Trinamul Congress, after coming to power in Bengal in 2011 had formed the WBCERC so that people can lodge complaints against private hospitals, nursing homes and diagnostic centres in the state with the regulatory commission seeking justice if their patients cry negligence. They can also lodge complaints against these private healthcare units if they charge exorbitant hospital bills.
Justice Banerjee didn’t respond to both phone calls and WhatsApp messages made by this correspondent to his mobile phone today seeking his reactions. Blue ticks suggested he had read the messages.
Sources in the WBCERC said that Justice Banerjee on Tuesday shared an audio message among the employees of the commission describing details of the raid conducted by the high-level team at his office.
Expressing deep concern with the police movement, he said, according to the audio, that he was hurt and humiliated. The Statesman has not verified the audio.
“Our office does not have any security personnel and our stenographer Sadikul, a resident of Murshidabad district, stays in one small room where arrangements for tea are kept for four days from Monday to Thursday and goes to his residence every Friday after office hours by train. He comes back every Monday because Saturday and Sunday are off days. I saw many policemen hanging around in front of our office building around 4.50 pm on Monday when I left for the day to visit a private hospital in north Kolkata,” according to Justice Banerjee’s audio message.
“After visiting the hospital, I spent quality time at Maayer Bari (Sarada Ma) at Bagbazar. In the meantime, I forgot to carry my mobile phone with me as I left it in my car. I came back and saw many missed calls made by one of my senior officers. I called up the officer and got details about the incident on Monday evening. After coming back home, I called up the stenographer Sadikul because he was there during the raid,” the commission chairman said in his audio message.
“I am humiliated to some extent because they raided my office without informing me. I have conveyed it to the right person at the right place,” Justice Banerjee said through his audio message.
