Suspend doctor, says UP panel after HIV+ patient examined in cycle cart

Officials said that the woman patient in question was from a poor family in Sahibabad and suffering from tuberculosis. She had earlier tested positive for HIV

Ghaziabad: A committee of officers from the MMG district hospital in Ghaziabad has recommended suspension of a contractual doctor and termination of services of a ward boy on Thursday, a day after a HIV positive patient was not provided a stretcher.

UPdeputy chief minister Brijesh Pathak’s office ordered an inquiry after a video of a man pulling the cycle cart with the woman patient emerged (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Officials said that the woman patient in question was from a poor family in Sahibabad and suffering from tuberculosis. She had earlier tested positive for HIV.

UP’s deputy chief minister Brijesh Pathak’s office ordered an inquiry after a video of a man pulling the cycle cart with the woman patient emerged on Wednesday. A three-member panel was subsequently set up.

“The committee has recommended suspension of the contractual doctor, Dr Sheel Verma, and also termination of services of a ward boy, Mayank Kumar. It is alleged that they did not provide stretcher/wheel-chair to the patient before referring her to a higher facility at Meerut. However, the family approached me while they were in MMG Hospital and sought an ambulance,” said Manoj Chaturvedi, chief medical superintendent of MMG District Hospital.

“This was provided to them and the patient was referred in ambulance to Meerut Medical College. The doctor who examined the patient should have made efforts to get an ambulance for referring the patient to the higher facility,” CMS added.

The doctor, who examined the patient at the antiretroviral therapy centre, said that the department had already closed down at 2.30pm when the patient along with the family arrived for treatment.

“The ART centre has no facility to examine or admit the patient and the HIV patients are generally referred to the higher facility. The family on their own brought their patient in the cycle cart and the department was already closed down for the day. Since I was still there, I came out and examined the patient in the cart. She was immediately referred to the higher centre. The family had brought the patient in the cart on their own from their house in Sahibabad,” Dr Sheel Verma, said.