The visit of President Pranab Mukherjee to the State capital exacerbated the woes of the patients visiting the associated hospital of Government Doon Medical College (GDMC) on Tuesday as many doctors from this hospital deputed for the Presidential visit.
The department of medicine, bore the maximum brunt of the high profile visit as only one Physician was available in the OPD of the biggest hospital of the State. Two Physicians, Dr Harish Basera and Dr K C Pant were on the duty of the President while another Physician Dr Mahavir Singh being Physician of Governor was also not available for the OPD patients. To make matters worse, two Physicians, Dr Muskesh Sundariyal and Dr S D Joshi are on leave while Dr S D Joshi is on Kedarnath duty.
The entire load of OPD on the day was on lone physician Dr Pravin Panwar who examined about 400 patients on the day. On normal days three to four physicians are available in the OPD of medicine. Many patients were seen leaving for other hospitals when they saw big crowd outside the lone OPD of medicine. “It is unfortunate that only one Physician is available in the medicine OPD today. I was told that doctors have gone on VIP duty due to which poor patients are forced to suffer. The administration should depute doctors from private hospitals on VIP duties so that doctors are available in government hospital,’’ said one of a furious patient. Manish Rawat a resident of the Mothorowala suggested that the doctors holding administrative posts in the state health directorate or CMO offices should be deployed on VIP duties. He said that these doctors are experienced and their deployment on such duties would not affect functioning of the government hospitals. “The Doon hospital is visited by thousands of patients daily who arrive from different parts of the state to get them examined. If doctors are not available in this hospital also then condition of other Government hospitals can be well understood,’’ he quipped.
Apart from two Physicians other doctors who are on duty of President are orthopedic surgeons Dr S K Gupta and Dr Anil Joshi and Anesthetists Dr A K Singh and Dr Pankaj Sharma. The absence of these doctors also caused discomfiture to the patients. To add to the workload of the doctors many newly enrolled students of I year MBBS course of the medical colleges were also present in the hospital for their mandatory medical checkup.