Hyderabad: Dr D. Preethi immediately after graduating from medical college had worked at the ESI Hospital at Sanathnagar and Railway Hospital at Secunderabad simultaneously during the Covid pandemic.
Though she was a sincere student, the Kakatiya Medical College management had harassed her by marking her absent when she went on five days leave for her sister’s wedding after informing the college, a relative said.
Her brother Vamshi Prudhvi told Deccan Chronicle that in August 2020, he went to her after he got exposed to a Covid patient. She told her brother to wait and rushed to see another patient. “She was so committed and brave. When I saw her she did not even have a PPE. She was working with a double mask," Prudhvi said.
Family members who recollected this said Dr Preethi had no time to visit them but never missed a day at work.
Meanwhile, tribal organisations demanded details of the treatment provided to Dr Preethi at the Nims Hospital. Dr Rajmukar Jadhav of Lambadila Aikhya Vedika that if Dr Preethi had belonged to a privileged community, she would have been taken to a corporate hospital. But because she belongs to a tribal community, she was treated at the government-run Nims Hospital.
The organisations alleged that harassment and the discrimination of Dr Preethi began in the college and continued even as she battled for life.
"Without a detailed and transparent probe from a high power committee, the details behind her condition, will never come out," they said. They demanded ex gratia of `5 crore to the family and a government job to a family member.
