Dr Kalyan De Chaudhuri , an assistant professor of general medicine who is suffering from stage IV pancreatic cancer and seeking VRS has accused the head of the medical board of harassment. The board is supposed to officially state that the professor, aged 55, is eligible for VRS due to his health. Officials at Swasthya Bhawan have also assured De Chaudhuri of the intervention.

De Chaudhuri is working with Malda Medical College and a few months ago had applied for VRS. He is currently undergoing treatment for pancreatic adenocarcinoma stage IV with liver metastasis at Tata Medical Centre and was asked to appear before a medical board at Medical College and Hospital, Kolkata, (MCH) on May 16. De Chaudhuri alleged that he was asked to undergo a number of tests unnecessarily by Dr Shibashish Bhattacharya, the head of medical oncology at MCH.

De Chaudhuri told TOI that the rest of the doctors at the medical board were very concerned. But Bhattacharya refused to see investigative reports from NABL-accredited laboratories done only a week before and kept on insisting to get those done again at MCH. He also instructed that further investigation needs to be carried out.

De Chaudhuri alleged that he was also asked to get several other investigations, like NCV echocardiography, and a few biochemical and haematological investigations, which, many doctors feel were not necessary for a stage IV cancer patient. In fact, one of the doctors on the medical board also wrote a dissent note saying the tests were not necessary.

The assistant professor said that his doctors have told him that prognosis of metastatic pancreatic cancer can be bad and it is almost incurable. The disease and 12 rounds of chemotherapy have already taken away his energy and now if he has to undergo all these tests again then it will suck out the remaining life from him.