"To Prove We Worked": UP Doctors Quit Posts Over 'Endless' Covid Review

The doctors are in charge of Community Health Centres and Primary Health Care centres in Unnao. Both these places are rural hospitals that provide frontline healthcare to villages.

Fourteen government doctors in Uttar Pradesh's Unnao, just 40 km from capital Lucknow, who are in charge of rural hospitals in the district, have resigned from their posts saying they are being made the scapegoats for the rise in Covid infections in the district. The doctors are in charge of Community Health Centres and Primary Health Care centres in Unnao. Both these places are rural hospitals that provide frontline healthcare to villages. Eleven of the 14 doctors who signed on a joint resignation letter visited the office of Unnao's chief medical officer on Wednesday evening and handed over the letter to his deputy. In the letter, reviewed by NDTV, the doctors say that despite working hard in the pandemic, punitive action and bad behavior is being meted out to doctors without any basis. "The problem is that our teams are working round the clock, but it seems we are being marked out for 'not working'. The DM, other officials, even the SDM and the tehsildar are all supervising us and holding review meetings. Our teams leave at noon, track and isolate Covid positive patients, get sampling done, distribute medicines and then, once we are back, we get calls from SDM asking to come for review meetings. Even if someone is posted 30 km away, he or she is bound to travel all the 30 km for these review meetings. We have to prove that we have worked. It seems it is being suggested that because we are not working, the Covid infection is spreading," said Dr Sharad Vaishya, one of the doctors who signed on the resignation letter.