The patients are facing problems as the Computer assisted Tomography (CAT) - machine of the associated hospital of Government Doon Medical College (GDMC) here has become dysfunctional. To make the matter worse, the all important machine is not under any maintenance contract due to which uncertainty prevails on its repair. The machine is only facility in Government hospitals of the city and it serves more than fifty patients in a day. It is learnt that the Siemens Company which manufactures the machines is not interested to take the Comprehensive Maintenance Contract (CMC) of the machine. The company is disinterested as CMC payment of over Rs 26 lakh is pending with the department.
There appears a lack of coordination between the offices of Principal of GDMC and Medical Superintendent (MS) of the hospital on the issue.
The Principal Dr Pradeep Bharati Gupta said that he had written a letter on December 08 itself for CMC of the machine. He claimed that the machine would be made operational in few days. On the other hand the MS Dr K K Tamta said that no such letter was received by the hospital and said that the machine is without CMC for last many months. He added that on Thursday he has sent a letter to the Director General Health for CMC of the machine.
It is worth mentioning here that the medical college received a sum of Rs 50 lakhs in the month of August to renew the maintenance contract of various machines of the hospital however the CMC of the CT scan was not renewed at that time due to procedural problems.
The CT scan was installed in the hospital in the year 2004. The machine is old now and the radiologists of the hospital want the latest Dual Energy based CT scan machine with a capability of 128 slices to be installed in the department.
However the patients who are asked to undergo CT scan by the doctors are facing problems in absence of the facility and many of them are forced to cough out extra money to get the scan done from private centres. These centers always make merry whenever CT or MRI machine of Doon hospital develop a snag. The private centres charge Rs 4000- 5000 for CT scan while in Doon hospital the fee is only Rs 1500. Moreover the hospital charges conducts free CT for the BPl patients and those covered under the Mukjyamtri Swasthya Bima Yojna (MSBY).