CALCUTTA, 16 January 2005 — President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam has ordered West Bengal government to investigate a woman’s complaint that a surgeon “stole” her kidney in the operation theater and sold it for a hefty price.
Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharya’s government has instituted a high-level probe into the unprecedented charge following Kalam’s intervention.
Asha Devi, a 34-year-old married woman resident of Kalyanpur in West Bengal’s Burdwan district, has accused a local doctor, Anadi Banerjee, of stealing her right kidney during surgery.
She wrote to the president that Banerjee operated twice on her — an appendectomy in 1994 and a ligation in 1999. The loss of her kidney was apparently detected during ultrasonography in 2002.
She lodged a police complaint against the doctor but the case was not investigated, forcing her to write directly to the president.
Banerjee insists he is innocent. Dismissing her accusations, he says that his competitors have hatched an elaborate conspiracy with Asha’s help to tarnish his reputation.
The woman says that she developed severe stomach complications after the 1994 appendectomy. She consulted another doctor who ordered ultrasonography. Then both her kidneys were clearly visible. She again fell ill after the 1999 ligation. A subsequent USG revealed that her right kidney was missing.
There is also no trace of her right ovary.
She and her husband, who works with the Life Insurance Corporation of India, confronted Banerjee who showed them the door. The couple complained to the police, the district magistrate as well as the state Human Rights Commission. But nothing happened.
As a last resort, Asha sent an SOS to Rashtrapati Bhavan. Kalam ordered the state government last month to investigate the issue. The health department has instituted a three-member committee headed by the chief medical officer of Burdwan district to investigate the case.
Asha’s complaint states that her kidney was sold to organ racketeers who are doing a thriving business in the nearby industrial town of Asansol. Police say they are investigating the role of several doctors at hospitals across the country to uncover a racket involving illegal trade in human organs.
So far no doctor has been arrested, although members of gangs responsible for buying and selling kidneys for transplants were nabbed last year in many cities from Amritsar to Hyderabad.
