Jail authorities decided to arrange for doctors after former West Bengal minister Partha Chatterjee complained of pain in his hip and swelling of his feet at Presidency Correctional Home.
Sources said Chatterjee told senior jail officials that he was finding it difficult to stand after sitting for long and felt an occasional numbness in his feet because of swelling.
Chatterjee’s health complaints were conveyed to the state prison department. It was later decided that a team of specialist doctors would be brought from outside to attend to him, provided doctors at the jail hospital suggested the same.
“His health is being monitored. If there is a need for any special intervention, that would be attended to,” said a prison department official.
Chatterjee and close aide Arpita Mukherjee have been lodged in Presidency and Alipore Women’s Correctional Home since August 5.
Chatterjee, who is overweight according to doctors and suffers from chronic ailments including diabetes and high blood pressure, spent the last two days mostly reading books and newspapers on the cot in his cell. He has been getting used to prison where he shares a washroom with a few other inmates, sources said.
Mukherjee, too, has been adapting to prison, officials said. She has started taking meals, which she initially refused.