Dr Manish Rawat, a neurosurgeon from Safdarjung hospital who’s Audi Q7, worth Rs 81 lakhs was involved in an gruesome accident killing four people seems to not have used a driver to go to work in his Audi in the last few months of employment.
According to his former colleagues, joining a government hospital was a dream he had chased for several years.
Rawat’s ex-employers in Bareilly say that he had been applying for jobs in both Gangaram hospital and Safdarjung hospital during his tenure in Bareilly.
Rawat had worked in Bareilly for two and a half years in three hospitals before shifting to Delhi and served in each for less than a year each.
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While in Bareilly, he also shifted more than three jobs in private hospitals before joining Safdarjung hospital, the government run premier hospital in the capital in June last year.
Outlook got in touch with the medical superintendent Dr Anil K Rai of Safdarjung hospital who said that all information compiled on Rawat has been sent to the ministry of health to take further action.
"Rawat joined the hospital in June as a class 1 employee under the union public commission.He had taken four days leave after the incident," says Rai.
On being asked whether the government was aware of the Audi Q7 Owned by Rawat, Rai said that all assets of class 1 employees are declared to the ministry before joining but cannot be revealed.
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"This is third party information which cannot be shared. I am personally not aware of such assets," says Rai
Manish Vaishnav, the chief administrative officer of Sri Ram Kishore Hospital which was Rawat's previous place of employment recounts that the Audi involved in the accident was bought by Rawat in the last two months of his employment at Sri Ram Kishore hospital and he often used to bring it to work.
“He had two cars which he used to alternate between,” he says. Vaishnav also doesn’t recount a driver driving the Audi and says that Rawat used to drive to work himself.
A visit to Safdarjung hospital, Rawat’s current place of employment, revealed that he never brought the Audi to work and most of his colleagues and juniors weren’t even aware that he owned such a vehicle. As for whether the car he came to work in was driven by himself or a driver, no one seemed to know. Rawat has been absent from work since the accident on January 27th and the department has been unable to contact him.
Rawat joined Safdarjung after leaving Gangasheel hospital in Bareilly last year where he worked for eight months. Vaishnav says that even while working with Gangasheel, Rawat would shuttle from Delhi to Bareilly quite often.
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“Dr Rawat was often absent from work and was applying to Ganga Ram hospital while working with us,” says Vaishnav.
“Nobody was aware about the reason for his leaves till he informed us about shifting to Safdarjung hospital in Delhi a month before he left for Delhi,” he adds.
Rawat was looking to join a government hospital much before 2016. Dr Saurabh Goel, managing director of Sri Ram Kishore hospital in Bareilly where Rawat worked for a period of six months from February to August 2014 says that Rawat was applying for government jobs since then.
“He told me he was looking for the kind of stability one finds in a government hospital ever since he joined us,” says Goel adding that because of Rawat’s lack of assurance to stick around with the hospital, he had to find a replacement on short term; though they parted on good terms. Goel says he was in touch with Rawat till late January and recounts him saying that he was enjoying his work at Safdarjung hospital.
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Both Goel and Vaishnav recount that other than taking more than expected leaves, he was a good employee and great with patients --“Rawat was an extremely social person and treated his patients with warmth.”
In his immediate previous place of employment, Rawat earned around Rs 5 lakh per month and did not have any independent practice in addition to the hospitals he was employed with. It still remains a mystery as to how he could procure a car worth Rs 81 lakhs.
