Eye hospital management, staff slug it out, patients suffer

Patients are beginning to feel the heat of the ongoing tussle between the staff and management of Venu Eye Hospital at Sheikh Sarai in South Delhi.

Patients are beginning to feel the heat of the ongoing tussle between the staff and management of Venu Eye Hospital at Sheikh Sarai in South Delhi.

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A patient —H.K. Sharma, an employee of an insurance company — registered a formal complaint after he had to wait for hours to get treatment.

“I was shocked to see the utter chaos and confusion prevailing there. I have been undergoing treatment for the last 25 years, but this time, no one in the hospital knew what was happening,” Sharma said.

Sharma is not the only one to have suffered.

Sadanand Punia, who has been undergoing treatment for cataract in the hospital, had to go without treatment. The doctor who was treating him, Dr Manoj Kumar Gupta, has been on suspension for more than two weeks now.

Confusion continues to prevail at the hospital. This, despite the Delhi High Court ordering the hospital to “reconsider and re-examine” the suspension of 27 employees.

The court had also asked the management to pass “suitable orders within 5 working days.”

The staff, who have been out of work for almost 17 days now, allege they are being harassed.

“Vinod Salodia, co-coordinator and in-charge in the Medical Records Department, was slapped by two senior members of the management—Managing Director Tanuja Joshi and president of governing body Dr J.K. Jain, following which he registered a police complaint,” alleged Neeraj Kumar, assistant manager in the hospital’s outreach department.

The police complaints were withdrawn later in the day after mutual settlement.

“Such incidents have become very common. It is complete goondaraj (hoolioganism),” he said.

According to the hospital staff, some employees were also threatened with dire consequences on the day of court hearing, if they didn’t withdraw the case.

Hindustan Times tried to contact senior management officials but they refused to comment.

The apparent reason for the growing tension between the staff and management is the board’s intention to shut the hospital, before selling it to private hands.

The 28-year-old charitable institute— employing 400 people and serving more than 50,000 patients every year — seems to be close to shutting its doors to patient services, if the chaos prevails.