The state administration has sought explanation from medical education department over long delay in the purchase of new CT scan machine in Government Doon Medical College (GDMC) hospital. The CT scan machine of the biggest government hospital of the state is non functional from last eleven months.
Taking strong exception of the delay despite of the fact that the budget for purchase of new machine has been sanctioned, the state administration has asked the medical education department to inform it about the reasons for non purchase of new machine.
The secretary (In charge), medical health and family welfare, Pankaj Kumar Pandey told The Pioneer that the department has been asked to mention the reasons for the delay. He said that the department should either purchase a new machine or enter into Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode for providing the important service. Incidentally the state administration has also released as sum of Rs six crore for Srinagar Medical College for purchasing a new machine.
The CT scan machine was installed in the GDMC hospital in the year 2004 and as per the norms this machine has become obsolete and needs immediate replacement.
The hospital administration has requested the state administration to replace the machine with modern Coronary CT Angiography machine. The administration approved the budget but the medical education department is learnt to have been sitting over the proposal. The department is said to be mulling over handing over the CT scan facility in the PPP mode. More than 50 CT scans were done by lone machine daily when it was operational and in absence of this facility patients are forced to visit expensive private hospitals and diagnostic centres to get the CT done. In absence of CT scan facility in hospital, doctors in some cases were advising MRI scans for patients resulting in extra load on MRI machine.