Hospital salutes UP doctor who worked 20 hours/day for 2 years, names lab after mom

MEERUT: The day Dr Atul Srivastava’s mother died, over 300 Covid test reports were lying on his desk, waiting for his approval. It was April 30. The microbiologist at Muzaffarnagar Medical College rushed to his mother’s funeral for just two hours, cremated her and made his way back to the lab he had been painstakingly putting together for over a year.
Since April last year, the Covid research and diagnostics lab at the hospital was all he had worked for — 20 hours a day, testing over 20,000 samples without a single day of leave. On Friday, the hospital formally inaugurated the lab with a salute to the doctor — it was named ‘Smt Jai Shri Sinha Diagnostic and Research Laboratory’ after his mother.
“For me, this is dedicated to all frontline warriors who went down fighting the disease and saving lives,” Srivastava, 40, said. An MBBS from Lala Lajpat Rai Memorial Medical College in Meerut, he did his microbiology postgraduation from Christian Medical College in Ludhiana before joining the Muzaffarnagar Medical College’s microbiology department in April 2016. It was in April last year, when the country had just begun to realise the seriousness of the pandemic, that he was asked to set up the lab.
“We started working day and night to structure the lab … It was difficult. There was no technical knowhow because the labs that were around were either new or working overtime. I had to depend on my instincts and the literature available on the internet. I spoke to equipment manufacturers, learnt about things on my own and, now, we have an 18-room lab,” he said. In October, the Indian Council of Medical Research allowed the lab to start conducting tests. Since then, he has tested 20,662 samples. “I had three assistants and we worked round the clock to ensure there was no report backlog.”
But in April this year, when the second wave of infections swept across the nation, his family, all of them, fell sick. “His mother, father, brother, sister-in-law, brother-in-law and uncle tested positive. His mother, brother-in-law and uncle passed away. But he showed commendable professional commitment,” said Prof GS Manchanda, principal of the medical college. “Some 300 reports from the panchayat election committee were awaiting his approval the day his mother died. He knew getting the reports out would ensure timely completion of the elections,” he added. “So now, dedicating the lab to his mother is a gesture of gratitude towards his selfless service.”
But it was tough for Srivastava. “I was a wreck. My mother was gone, my brother was in the ICU and I had to tell him she was recovering. I had no idea how many of my family would survive,” he said. “But at the same time, I’d have to keep rushing back to conduct tests. There were times when beds were not available, or there were no ambulances. I knew how much one negative test would mean in those times, ensuring a bed is available for the next person who tests positive. I had to go on."