Patients suffer as costly X-ray tools go missing at Sion hospital….Sumitra Deb Roy
MUMBAI: Bizarre as it may sound, essential accessories vital for the functioning of four advanced X-ray facilities at Sion Hospital, one of the busiest public hospitals in the city, have gone missing from its premises. The ‘theft’ has occurred even before the machines could be installed.
The hospital found out about the missing equipment after the Bangalore-based company that was supposed to install the machines informed that its vital accessories were not there.
Dr Sandhya Kamath, dean of Sion Hospital, though, completely denied the incident and said that no such thing has happened. The authorities have conveniently labelled as the theft as “misplaced accessories”, which has rendered the automatic X-ray film processors useless. The machines-worth more than Rs 25 lakh-have been lying with the hospital for more than a year now due to incomplete civil work. The accessory box that has gone missing contained tools worth more than Rs 2 lakh.
The film processors were brought in with the idea of reducing the waiting hours for patients as the machine could develop X-ray films in less than three minutes. Currently, the X-ray films need to be developed manually, which easily takes more than an hour. Most of the time, patients are asked to return and collect the report hours later. “First, it takes years to get a machine sanctioned and installed. On top of that, if parts start getting stolen, patient care is going to get difficult,” said a source from the hospital. The advanced X-ray processors were supposed to be used at orthopedic, emergency medical services and radiology departments.
Interestingly, the hospital’s radiology department, known as one of the best in the city for trauma care, has been reeling under a huge staff crunch. In fact, its MRI machine in the hospital-worth Rs 12 crore, which was finally installed last year after a delay of almost 15 years-is also underutilized. BMC has been incurring a loss of up to Rs lakh everyday as patients are invariably referred to private diagnostic centres. With just one technician, the department currently manages to diagnose eight to 10 patients a day while the machine can easily take the load of another 40 patients. Patients are, therefore, forced to visit private centres which charge at least four-five times more. The waiting list for MRI and CT scan in Sion hospital is easily more than two months.
Dr Suleman Merchant, head of radiology, admitted that BMC was yet to sanction the post of technicians for the MRI and CT scan facilities. Doctors here have doubled up as technicians and been carrying out the diagnosis. Even the CT scan facility is underutilized and about 110 patients can be diagnosed easily as opposed to 70 done currently. The department also needs more associate professors and lecturers.