Kolkata: WB Guv writes to Health dept to take action on demands for removal of WBUHS VC

West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar has written to the State Health Department to take appropriate action into the demands for the removal of the vice-chancellor of WBUHS Dr. Rajendra Pandey for his alleged professional misconduct, officials said on Thursday. The governor is the Chancellor of all state universities including West Bengal University of Health Sciences (WBUHS).

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Governor writes to the Health Department

The Governor's secretariat had written to the Health Department to take appropriate action into the demands for removal of Pandey from the post of WBUHS vice-chancellor, they said. In a communication dated December 16, 2019, to the joint secretary in the state health and family welfare department, of the Governor's secretariat said, "for kind attention and appropriate action into the matter".

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The ethics committee of the Medical Council of India on November this year had reprimanded West Bengal Medical Council President Dr. Nirmal Majhi, the then director of the SSKM Hospital Dr. Pradip Kumar Mitra and Dr. Rajendra Pandey, who was the then HoD Nephrology department for alleged professional misconduct in an attempt to perform dialysis of a dog at the city's SSKM Hospital in 2015.

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The committee called the three doctors' attempt as condemnable and directed them to refrain from attempting such procedure in the future. In 2015, a dog of a relative of Dr. Majhi was taken to for dialysis to the SSKM Hospital, though it is not a veterinary medical institution.

Media reports suggested that Dr. Maji also an influential Trinamool Congress leader allegedly wrote a note to Dr. Pandey, who forwarded the matter to Dr. Mitra. The dialysis, however, did not take place after a huge uproar. Heeding to Maji's request, Pandey the then nephrology department head had forwarded the matter to hospital's director Dr. Pradeep Mitra.

Incidentally, the Mamata Banerjee government has recently directed vice-chancellors of all state-run universities to route all communications to the Chancellor through the Higher Education department only.

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