Karimnagar: District hospital lacks technicians, patients forced to go to pvt centres

Karimnagar: Even as the State government has spent crores of rupees on equipping the District headquarter hospital in the district with state-of-art equipment, the facilities are not available to patients on full-scale. As a result patients are forced to go to private diagnostic centres for diagnosis. For instance a computed tomography (CT) scan machine at the hospital is only available from 9 am to 2 pm. The same is the case with ultrasound diagnostic equipment at the hospital.

A patient, Padma of Karimnagar came to the district hospital recently in the afternoon for treatment due to severe abdominal pain. The examining doctors advised her to do an ultrasound. As it was already noon, the ultrasound centre at the district hospital was closed. She had to undergo an ultrasound test at a private centre spending Rs 1,000. Though the hospital authorities during inauguration of the facility on Aug 19 assured that from September 1, a radiologist and technician will be appointed to ensure the CT scan services are available from 9am to 9pm.

But that assurance has not been fulfilled yet, causing the patients lot of troubles. Responding to the complaints of the patients, the local Minister G Kamalakar directed the hospital authorities to make the facility available from 9 am to 9pm, but in vain.

The government had spent Rs 2.15 crore to set up a CT Scan machine and also spent many lakhs on an ultrasound machine with the aim of providing corporate level medical care to the poor. In addition to that two advanced ultrasound machines donated by MP Bandi Sanjay Kumar are available but are not helping the poor due to lack of technicians.

Likewise, ECG, which plays a vital role in the diagnosis of heart disease, is being operated by a patient care employee instead of a specialist. Though the technicians are available 24 hours a day in the X-Ray section, patients have not been given an X-ray film for the past few days. The staff says that the X-ray was sent to the concerned doctor on WhatsApp. There is a need to ensure that the services of CT scan, Ultrasound, ECG and X-Ray departments are available 24 hours a day at the District Hospital, which provides emergency medical services to the people in erstwhile Karimnagar district and neighbouring districts.