The exodus of senior faculty continues at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences. The latest to leave is the head of the department of obstetrics and gynaecology, Dr Sunita Mittal.
But for her the reason is not a job abroad or lack of proper infrastructure in the premier institute.
It is, as sources say, harassment by the administration for having spoken out about ‘favouritism’ in the hospital.
Mittal had written to the administration about out of turn leave being granted to Dr Deepika Deka, a professor in her department and wife of AIIMS director, Dr R C Deka.
She pointed out an anomaly in records maintained by the administration. Deka took 59 days of leave, according to the records of the department, while the administrative officer had records for only 21.
This created a rift between Mittal and the administration. A doctor at the hospital said there were heated exchanges between Deka and Mittal.
This uncomfortable situation prompted Mittal to apply for voluntary retirement, sources said.
In the past 10 months, three other department heads have quit AIIMS. Dr K Srinath Reddy, Head of cardiology, took voluntary retirement earlier this year. Dr H H Dash, Head of neuro-anaesthesia, quit recently after serving the institute for 30 years.
Dr Supriyo Ghosh, Head of department of ophthalmology also submitted his papers recently.
Others who bid goodbye to the hospital in recent months include Dr Rani A Sundar, assistant professor, anaesthesiology, Dr John Ranjan Behera, assistant professor, orthopaedics, Dr Vinay Gulati, associate professor, department of emergency medicine, Dr C Venkata Karthikeyan, associate professor, ENT and Dr Manish Sharma, assistant professor, neurosurgery.
Dr Arvind Kumar, professor of surgery at AIIMS till four months ago is now head of Institute of Robotic Surgery at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital.
“AIIMS is my mother, I learnt a lot there, but my patients had to wait for months to get robotic surgery as I would get a chance in the operation theatre only once a week. Here I performed up to 30 surgeries in a month.”