With one other CT scan machine, this time within the emergency division, rendered non-functional resulting from a defective CT Tube, sufferers of the government-run Lok Nayak Hospital are compelled to journey so far as 7 km to its trauma centre or to the GB Pant Hospital for his or her scan necessities. The corporate accountable has refused to undertake the restore owing to prior fee pending with the Central Procurement Company (CPA) for greater than 2 years, it’s realized.
CPA used to obtain medicines and surgical consumables for all Delhi authorities establishments till the introduction of the Authorities e-Market (GeM) in 2016. Nonetheless, restore of machines bought earlier can be performed by the company itself.
Of the three CT scan machines at Lok Nayak Hospital, at the moment solely the one on the Sushruta Trauma Centre, located greater than 7 km away, is purposeful. The opposite two on the foremost hospital are each non-functional. Other than the one on the emergency division, the machine in the primary division was condemned, or faraway from use, virtually a yr in the past.
This led to a “large workload” on the machine on the emergency division because it had been operating constantly all through the day, mentioned a letter from radiodiagnosis division head Dr Gaurav Shankar Pradhan to medical director Dr Suresh Kumar. The CT scan machine has not been working since October 21.
“The corporate has in an e mail dated 21/10/24 expressed its incapacity to restore/substitute the identical until the prior fee pending with CPA for greater than 2 years is cleared. A number of reminders have been despatched, the final was despatched on 08/10/24 to your workplace,” the letter learn, urging the director to expedite the discharge of the fee. He additionally requested {that a} new CT scan machine be procured on “an pressing foundation” to interchange the condemned gear.
Additional, he requested Dr Kumar to have a phrase along with his counterpart at GB Pant Hospital concerning sufferers being referred to the close by hospital for scan necessities. In reference to the condemned machine, he wrote, “…there’s a absolutely purposeful CT machine within the radiotherapy division. Until the time the difficulty of Emergency CT is sorted, along with your permission, the machine in radiotherapy can be utilized for affected person care”.
The dearth of purposeful gear at Lok Nayak Hospital has emerged amid an ongoing case listening to within the Delhi Excessive Courtroom throughout which a court-monitored committee lately made a submission on the burden on Delhi authorities hospitals. The affected person backlog of assessments or diagnoses have been operating into months, the committee claimed.
Sufferers are compelled to attend for so long as 3-4 months to endure assessments on the OPD (outpatient division) of Lok Nayak Hospital and 8-9 months for assessments at its wards, an affidavit dated October 11 filed earlier than the court docket by AIIMS Assistant Professor Dr Nishant Sharma, on behalf of the AIIMS director, says.
To endure an MRI on the hospital, a affected person has to attend for round 36-40 months on the OPD and 20-30 days at a ward. For a CT scan, the wait is for 7-8 months within the OPD and 10-12 days within the IPD (inpatient division).
Following the court docket’s instructions on October 4, a proposal for buying 20 CT scan, 12 MRI, and 52 ultrasonography machines was put up for approval at a gathering chaired by AIIMS Director Dr M Srinivas.
