VIP Duties: Doon Medical College Cardiologist withdraws resignation

Dehradun: The only cardiologist at Uttarakhand’s government hospital who recently quit his job after facing the pressure of serving VIP patients regularly, has finally resumed his work. The cardiologist tendered his resignation as he has to handle continuous VIP duties without any prior notice.

Dr Amar Upadhyaya was the only cardiologist at Uttarakhand’s government hospital who was handling all the emergency cases. However, the doctor has withdrawn his resignation and started working on his post. The confirmation of this news has been given by the Government Doon Medical College principal Dr Ashutosh Sayana on Tuesday.

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“He [Dr Upadhyaya] has joined back... Even people have expectations…. We will take up the matter with higher authorities,” Dr Sayana informedHindustan Times. He said that Dr Upadhyaya was the only cardiologist employed by the state's administration. Dr Upadhayaya recently submitted his resignation due to repeated requests to attend VIP guests, including those who were in the state for G20 meetings.

Though the cardiologist did not give any comments on the issue, some of the doctors close to him claimed that Dr Upadhayaya was frustrated over the fact that he had to deny treatment to many patients who travelled great distances for treatment because of his frequent VIP duties. A second doctor said they were not given advance notice about their deployment on VIP assignments but were usually just given a few hours to prepare.

The Government medical college provides cost-effective health services to the entire Garhwal region of the Himalayas especially the tribal and disadvantaged areas of the region. The facility currently has only one cardiologist. The State Health Department of Uttarakhand had been planning to introduce new schemes such as offering attractive salaries to specialist doctors to lure them to address the problem of shortage of doctors.

The State also introduced an attractive scheme 'You Quote We Pay', under which, specialist doctors are hired through the National Health Mission (NHM). Under this scheme, the doctors get paid up to Rs 4 lakh monthly salary and the minimum salary is Rs 2.5 lakh.