North Delhi Municipal Corporation Commissioner Varsha Joshi met the resident doctor at Hindu Rao Hospital, whose services were terminated earlier, a day after Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan asked her to find a solution to the public ouster. After Joshi had called the doctor a thief on Twitter, the AIIMS residents doctors’ body had written to Vardhan. During the meeting, Dr Piyush Pushkar Singh, a student in the orthopaedics department denied her allegations: “I explained my stand and maintained that I did not steal anything, I said I was ready to appeal to the doctors, who I had distributed the face shields to, and ask them to return them to the administration.” Follow Indian Express Covid-19 tracker for latest updates Joshi did not respond to questions regarding the discussion in the meeting. The NGO that donated the face shields told The Indian Express that it had donated 102 of them to the hospital and the same number to the doctor. Singh was sacked on Wednesday for allegedly “diverting” the equipment, Joshi had said. The order said he was being let go for bringing “disrepute” to the institute. Joshi had said the equipment was meant for hospital authorities and Singh had no business distributing it among doctors as he couldn’t have decided which doctor needed it more. Vardhan has asked Joshi to reach out to the doctor and resolve the issue. In response to an e-mail query, Dr Monika’s Foundation, which donated the equipment, said the shields were given to Singh for “for immediate distribution to resident doctors and other frontline health care workers.” When asked about the NGO’s claims, Joshi said: “Donation sought by Resident Doctors Association is also routed to the Medical Superintendent. Face shields are used where there is a lot of aerosol such as respiratory diseases OPD and wards,” she said. She also said that the NGO has said it would give 200 face shields to the hospital but gave only around 100. The AIIMS RDA, which spoke in favour of Singh, said that accusing the doctor of theft was unfair. “There is nothing wrong in the administration’s expectation that the equipment will be handed over to them because they are better equipped to distribute them. The problem, however, is that the punishment given is not commensurate with the alleged misconduct,” said Dr Srinivas Rajkumar, AIIMS RDA General Secretary.
