Patients coming to the Doon hospital suffered as many doctors of the hospital were engaged in official duty due to the visit of President Pranab Mukherjee on Monday. long queues were witnessed outside the Out Patient Department (OPD) chambers of the doctors who were present in the hospital. As many as nine doctors of the hospital were assigned VVIP duty increasing the workload manifold on the doctors present on the day. To add to the problem of the patients the clerks at registration counter were not aware about the VVIP duties of the doctors till noon due to which patients in large numbers were seen standing outside the OPD chambers of the doctors which were not supposed to visit the hospital. Manish lakhera, a resident of Kargi Chowk said that State Government should not deploy doctors from Doon hospital as thousands of patients suffer due to the absence of doctors. Incidentally Monday is one of the most hectic days for doctors of Doon hospital as patients throng the hospital after the holiday of Sunday. The in charge of registration counter informed that more than 2200 new patients registered for the OPD on the day.
The nine doctors of the hospital were divided in three teams which were deployed at GTC helipad, Raj Bhawan and Doon hospital. Senior Physician Dr S D Joshi, Senior Surgeon Dr R C S Rawat and anesthetist Dr A K Gairola were present with the team which was deployed at GTC helipad. The second team of senior Physician Dr Mahavir Singh, Orthopedic surgeon Dr Jyoti Bohra and Anesthetist Dr Pankaj Sharma was present at Raj Bhawan, the services of cardiac ambulance, ECG and defibrillators were at the disposal of these teams. These teams were provided with the medical history of Mukherjee and blood group A Positive (blood group of President) was kept ready. Third team of Cardiologist Dr K B Joshi, Dr K C Pant and Dr R K Tamta were kept ready at Doon hospital for any emergency. The Doon hospital was one of the three safe houses set up by the administration to meet any exigency; the other two were Himalayan Institute Hospital Trust (HIHT), Jolly Grant and Military Hospital (MH). A team of specialist doctors of Mahant Indiresh hospital was also kept as standby.