Patients advised Ultrasound by the doctors of the associated hospital of Government Doon Medical College (GDMC) here are facing problems as lone radiologist of the hospital is not able to meet the huge patient load.
In such a situation, the patients are either forced to shell out extra money at the private radiology centres or wait for at least seven to eight days to get it done in the hospital. After recent transfers senior radiologist Dr Yatindra Singh was shifted to Boradi hospital Tehri and Dr Manoj Sharma were deployed here.
Former Director General (DG) health services, Dr G S Joshi is also working on contract in the hospital after retirement. However, on July 11 Dr Joshi has gone on a long leave due to which the entire workload of the radiology department fell on the shoulders of Dr Manoj Sharma. In the hospital more than 150 ultrasound cases are done daily on an average but due to shortage of staff, only 30-40 cases are being done these days. In such a situation the patients are asked either to wait for some days or get the ultrasound done from the private centres at astronomical prices.
In many cases due to lack of coordination between the department and the persons manning the billing counter the receipt of the fees for the ultrasound is charged from the patient but when he visits the department he/she is advised to get the money refunded.
The patients are bearing brunt of the situation where the health department is unable to provide radiologist in the biggest hospital of the State. Apart from Ultrasound the lone radiologist is manning other equipments.
The situation would remain such as Dr Joshi is expected to return to work on July 27.
The radiology department of the hospital has facilities like Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), Computer assisted Tomography (CT) scan, X rays, Digital X ray, Ultra sound, Mammography and bone densitometer. Hundreds of patients visit the hospital which incidentally is the biggest Government hospital of the State.
The department data suggests that the radiology department of the hospital does about 200 X rays, 120-150 Ultra Sounds, 45 CT scans and 20 to 25 MRI daily.
Recently the State Government has entered into an understanding with a Gurugram based company for operating the MRI machine of the hospital in the Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode but the arrangement is yet to be implemented on
the ground.