Dr. Rajkumar Srinivas, a senior resident doctor at AIIMS with the department of psychiatry at institute draws warning of disciplinary actions after he took to Twitter on May 25th criticizing the quality of N95 masks issued to the doctors by Health Ministery. He tweeted about it being compromised in the standard quality following up with the statistics provided, alleging it as false.
“There are major quality and standardization issues with India made #N95.” He tweeted.
For the last two weeks, Mr. Srinivas has been very vocal about his criticism and security measures taken for the front-liners. His Tweets and WhatsApp forwards have created a sense of awareness and familiarized people about the loopholes of the hospitals in combating Coronavirus.
On May 29th he was seen conducting a press conference after 50 more health workers and other staff members at AIIMS tested positive for the Novel Coronavirus in less than 48 hours time frame, resulting in a total of 279 confirmed positive cases amongst the AIIMS health-workers.
After all the allegations made by him, the administration of AIIMS has asked Dr. Srinivas to prove his facts and figures by the 3rd of June, failing to which strict actions would be taken against him.
Sanjeev Lalwani, registrar of AIIMS said, “We have sought an explanation from him over the issue. This is not an action against him, but we are trying to understand if he had raised this issue earlier with anyone in the administration before going to social media. We have a system in place, and all our heads are available for healthcare workers if they face any issue.”
“If this was their (the administration’s) way to address our query, we were not left with any option but to approach the media and put pressure on the administration. I am targeted because of my active participation in meetings, drafting letters, and seeking responses. I didn’t dilute these issues and the number of cases in AIIMS is now above 200. Despite our statements in the media, the condition of the health workers has not at all improved.”
He added. In an interview with The Wire, Dr. Srinivas said, “I stand by what I said and everything I said is verifiable to the media raised an important issue and we want a change in the condition of healthcare workers at AIIMS.”
