Junior doctors at the Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College Hospital in Aligarh have purchased protective gear worth Rs 1 lakh through donations.

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The Vice President of the Resident Doctors' Association, told reporters on April 12 that their hospital is "one of the frontline medical centres for testing and treating COVID-19 patients in Uttar Pradesh despite an acute shortage of vital protective gear for healthcare workers". He said that the Resident Doctors' Association (RDA) has raised its own fund through donations for purchasing critical protective gear like surgical masks and sanitisers. He said that the RDA had purchased protective gear worth Rs 1 lakh in the past four days.

The RDA President said the availability of protective gear for doctors at the hospital had reached a critical point when they had threatened to boycott work if necessary gear was not made available to them immediately. The crisis was, however, defused on the intervention of the AMU Vice Chancellor, who assured them that their concerns were being immediately addressed.

There are nearly 450 resident doctors at the 1,269-bed hospital -- a tertiary-level facility of the Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, which is affiliated to the Aligarh Muslim University.

A spokesperson of the medical college hospital, however, said that the concerns of the junior doctors were "misplaced" as adequate supply of protective equipment was in the pipeline. He said that the purchase procedures as stipulated by the Central government regulations had to be strictly adhered to for ensuring transparency.