Out of order: Pindi’s public hospitals without MRI machines for seven years

Private facilities charge Rs10,000 for one test

RAWALPINDI: Residents of Rawalpindi continue to suffer in the absence of magnetic resonance image (MRI) units in the city’s three main public hospitals.

There was never an MRI unit at Benzair Bhutto Hospital or District Headquarters Hospital, while the one at Holy Family Hospital has been out of order for almost seven years.

A $1.4 million MRI unit was installed at Holy Family Hospital in 2001, and started developing problems by 2005. The MRI machine, purchased from a German company, completely broke down in July 2009.

The MRI machine, installed in the Holy Family Hospital (HFH) is essential for diagnosing many ailments of the brain, abdomen, spine, and vascular areas.

Doctors at HFH carried out some 600 tests with the machine, mostly free of cost. The board of the three hospitals has long proposed the acquisition of a new MRI machine as the existing one is beyond repair.

An official in the HFH told The Express Tribune that the government, in July 2015, approved a proposal to buy a new MRI machine for Rs200 million, but the provincial government has not released the approved funds.

Repeated efforts were made to contact Rawalpindi Medical College Principal Dr Muhammad Umer --- who is also head of the three teaching hospitals --- for comment, but he could not reached.

Out of options

“A lot of patients are told to get MRI scans for diagnoses. The test is very expensive in private laboratories. It is the responsibility of the government to provide free or at least affordable MRI test facilities to poor patients,” a doctor at Benazir Bhutto Hospital said.

Patients have to pay over Rs10,000 for an MRI test at private laboratories, the doctor said.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 3^rd, 2016.