Doctor suspended over Facebook posts on dengue situation

Kolkata: West Bengal health department has suspended a doctor for alleging in Facebook posts that the state government is suppressing facts relating to the dengue menace in the state.

Arunachal Dutta Choudhury’s posts on the social media amount to “misinterpretation in the public and (are) derogatory to the hospital administration,” the suspension order issued by the state health department yesterday read.

The doctor, an MD, was posted at Barasat District Hospital in North 24 Parganas district.

He claimed in the posts that 500 people were admitted to the hospital on October 6 and wrote about his struggle to diagnose the patients many of whom were lying on the floor.

According to the health department, there have been 19 deaths in state-run hospitals since January and over 18,000 cases were reported in various government clinical establishments.

Opposition parties have been alleging that the Mamata Banerjee government is trying to suppress the number of deaths because of dengue in the state.