As many as 16 doctors on Wednesday, 12 May, collectively tendered their resignations to Ashutosh Kumar, the Chief Medical Officer of Unnao district in Uttar Pradesh, alleging harassment by administrative officials.
The doctors worked at leading primary and community healthcare centres. They have alleged mistreatment and being made scapegoats by the administration over the surge in COVID cases in the state. They also submitted their resignation to deputy CMO Tanmay.
“We are all working with utmost dedication to control the COVID-19 pandemic, but the department is harassing and issuing punitive orders against medical officers,” Dr Sanjeev Kumar told India Today.
A few of the doctors have withdrawn their resignations after talks with the administration. The Unnao District Magistrate, as per ANI, said, “CMO & ACMOs have spoken to them. The matter will be resolved soon. We’ll solve their issues through talks.”
The medical professionals claimed that they were subjected to verbal harassment by the CMO and the CMS. Citing an incident, the doctors, as per The Hindu, said that they had been blamed for submission of wrong data of patients, due to which tracking by teams on field became difficult.
The doctors were also not provided adequate supply of the drugs required for the treatment of COVID, they alleged, as per the report.
“Despite continuously working, it had been made to appear like we were not. It was also implied that due to this, the COVID-19 situation was going out of control,” said a doctor to The Hindu.
He explained they were being made scapegoats. The doctors would do field work for hours daily, distributing medicines, masks, carrying out sampling and isolating positive patients, after which, they would be summoned many kilometres away by the local SDM for a report of their work, they alleged.
The doctors were being penalised and terminated without adequate cause or explanation and were made to follow up on immediate ‘targets’, as per India Today.
(With inputs from The Hindu and India Today)
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