Mumbai: Rude lady doctor at Cooper vaccine centre irks citizens – Times of India

MUMBAI: A group of citizens who had gone to Dr RN Cooper Municipal Hospital in Vile Parle (west) for getting the second dose of Covaxin on Friday, have alleged that they were attended by a rather rude lady doctor.
The lady doctor told the citizens that she was doing a ‘favour’ to them by administering the second shot. The reason behind this brusque behavior was that the citizens had not taken their first shot from Cooper.
“We had travelled from Kandivali to Vile Parle on Friday morning in order to take the second jab of Covaxin. We had to wait in the long queue outside for over three hours. There was no facility for senior citizens; and when our turn finally came for the shot, this lady staffer rudely told us that she is ‘obliging to us’ by giving us the second dose, because we had not registered for the first dose from Cooper. We were all shocked by her behavior, since it is our right to get the second shot at any hospital,” said Bimal Maheshwari (60), who has recently recovered from a painful leg fracture.
Maheshwari added that when they questioned the lady doctor as to how she was doing a ‘favour’, she did not reason with them.
“I then complained to a senior doctor on duty at Cooper, but even this medical officer took our grievance very lightly and said that all their medical staff are overstressed. We told the officer that stress must not be an excuse to be rude to the citizens who have waited for hours for their second dose. They did not even give us the full name of the lady doctor who was rude to us,” said Maheshwari.
Another citizen, Rajiv Shah, has also tweeted about the rude behaviour that he had experienced at Cooper when he went for his second shot.
However, when TOI contacted the dean of Cooper, Dr Pinakin Gujjar, he denied that his medical team members were rude to anyone.
“Till May 6, we had to save the vaccination doses for the second round only for those people who had registered for their first shots here. So, if 1,000 citizens were given the first shot at Cooper, then we saved another 1,000 doses for the second shot for the same registered persons. However, from May 7 onwards we have started giving the second Covaxin shots to anyone who comes here,” Gujjar said.
Dr Gujjar added, “There was a large crowd waiting to get their dose at our centre on Friday. So, even our doctors are working hard to serve the public. Hence, citizens must also understand our situation and cooperate.”
The dean further added that for senior citizens above the age of 80 years, they have ensured that they easily get inoculated without waiting for long.