With a CT scan machine gone kaput, patients have to get the scan done at private labs by shelling out up to five times the cost
With a CT scan machine gone kaput, patients have to get the scan done at private labs by shelling out up to five times the cost
On Wednesday night, when relatives of Rajesh Potra, a resident of Sholapur Bazaar, rushed him to the emergency unit of Sassoon hospital, little did they know they would have to shift him out within minutes.
Potra, who sustained severe head injuries after a wall collapsed on him, was shifted to Ruby Hall Clinic immediately from Sassoon. The doctors needed a CT scan image to ascertain the extent of the injuries but the machine at Sassoon hospital has been out of order for over a month now.
Potra's is just a case in point. Almost 40 CT scans are conducted daily at Sassoon for emergencies like head injuries, road accident victims and others cases.
Over 1,200 patients, on an average, have been referred to private city laboratories over the past month. On an average, a CT scan costs Rs 2,000 in a private laboratory.
A doctor at Sassoon said that a normal CT scan costs barely Rs 400 at the hospital.
Sassoon hospital has, so far, given out close to Rs 25-lakh worth of business to private labs.
"The machine is out of order for three to four weeks. It has become old and needs to be replaced," said Dr Arun Jamkar, dean of Sassoon hospital. "We have requested senior authorities who have to make extra budgetary provisions to get the machine. Until then, we are trying to make do by repairing it."
Dr Gopal Khadse, head of the radiology department at Sassoon, said that the machine's had outlived its life around February this year, and a request for a new one, costing Rs 5.5 crore, has been made two months ago.
"The machine is 11 years old and it's too outdated. Its spares aren't available now," said Khadse. "After several requests, the makers of the machine have agreed to maintain it till December for us."
Doctors said it was shameful that the district's biggest state-run hospital operates without basic equipment like a CT scan machine.
"Sassoon hospital is a referral centre and gets the most complicated and serious cases besides medico-legal cases like accidents. If this is the state of affairs at Sassoon, touted to be the biggest in the district, it is extremely shameful," a senior surgeon said on condition of anonymity.
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