With digital X- ray machine of the radiology department of associated hospital of Government Doon Medical College (GDMC) playing truant, the patients are facing problems. There are two digital X ray machines in the radiology department of the biggest hospital of the State but one machine is not being used by the department for last many days as it has developed a fault. To add to the woes of the department the company which had the contract to repair the machine in past has pulled its hand off the contract this year.
It is learnt that the company was finding it difficult to find spare parts of the machine as it has become old so it has decided to back out of the contract this year.
The Medical Superintendent (MS) of the hospital Dr K K Tamta said that a proposal to purchase a new digital X- ray machine was put before the Hospital Management Committee (HMC), the meeting of which was held on Monday. He said that the committee has given its nod to purchase the new machine.
Meanwhile in absence of this machine the entire load of the doing digital X rays in the department has fallen on other machine. With only one machine operating the queue outside of the department has become longer. The patients standing in the queue have to do an agonizingly long wait for the digital X- rays done.
It is worth mentioning here that about 3000 patients visit the OPDs of the hospital daily. After the installation of the digital X- ray machines the doctors of the hospital have virtually stopped asking for the old film X- ray.
The radiology department data shows that more than 300 digital X -rays are done per day.