30 Junior Resident doctors disengaged from GTB’s 500-bed facility in 2 weeks

Around 30 Junior Resident doctors have been disengaged less than two weeks after they were brought on board to staff the 500-ICU bed facility linked to Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital at Ramlila ground.

The 500-bed facility was started by the Delhi government to augment the city’s ICU bed capacity in this current surge. On May 12, when it opened partially to patients, the city had recorded 13,287 cases in 24 hours and had recorded a positivity rate of 17.03%. Following that, the city’s positivity rate and new cases tally has been gradually climbing down — to 1,550 new cases on Monday.

According to the disengaged doctors, the facility currently has an occupancy of around 70 patients. According to the Delhi government’s Covid website, there were a total of 508 ICU beds vacant at GTB.

GTB Hospital MD Dr R S Rautela and AMS Dr Rajesh Kalra did not respond to calls or messages with queries.

On May 3, the hospital had begun interviews to engage 261 Junior Residents, 80 Senior Residents and 390 nurses “on short term and emergent basis initially for 3 months to work at 500-bed Covid facility centre, Ramlila ground linked with GTB Hospital”.

On Monday, 31 of the Junior Residents received an order stating that “they are disengaged from their respective duties with immediate effect”. They had been engaged with an honorarium of Rs 6,000 per day.

“I had joined on May 12 and have been coming for duty since then. On Monday, I had a morning shift duty, but when I went to the nursing station to mark my attendance, I was told that I had been relieved of my duty… The number of patients being admitted to the facility in the last few days has been very less, which is why they might not require our services. But we should have been given some prior notice,” said Dr. Nitin Bagri.

Another of the dismissed doctors, Dr Jatin Upadhyay, said their names in the roster have now been replaced by those of junior residents from the main hospital.