Capital’s two major hospitals functioning sans MRI machines

Absence of scanning equipment at PIMS and Polyclinic adds to patients’ woes

ISLAMABAD:

Islamabad’s two major hospitals — the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) and the Federal Government Services Hospital better known as Polyclinic — have been functioning without magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines, forcing patients to get tests done from private clinics and labs at exorbitant rates.

The MRI machine of the PIMS has been out-of-order for the last two years or so and the hospital administration has failed to arrange an alternate except for awarding a contract to a firm in 2021, which has failed to deliver the vital equipment.

The Polyclinic hospital has no MRI facility at all as it could not install the machine due to the lack of space. However, an administration official said that Japan has donated an MRI machine and infrastructure has been installed at the hospital and a consultant was being hired to give finishing touches to the project before importing the equipment from Japan.

Thousands of patients throng the two largest government hospitals in Islamabad, seeking treatment for various ailments, only to be told by the doctors to get the necessary scans and tests done from private labs and clinics.

The federal health ministry and health authorities have equally failed to arrange MRI facilities at the two hospitals to facilitate poor patients.

The absence of the facility at the two major tertiary hospitals has left the patients in the lurch. Apart from the Islamabad Capital Territory, a large number of patients from Rawalpindi, adjoining districts and from far off places such as Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkwa visit these two health facilities.

Health Minister Qadir Patel blamed the Federal Medical Teaching Institute (MTI) ACT, introduced by the previous PTI government, for having no MRI machine at the PIMS hospital.

Owing to the non-availability of MRI facilities in government hospitals, patients were forced to pay a huge sum to get tests done from private laboratories.

According to the PIMS hospital administration, a huge budget was required to repair the faulty MRI machine before they get a new one.

Due to the defective MRI machine at the PIMS hospital, not only doctors were facing difficulties in diagnosing diseases but also patients have to pay thousands of rupees for tests in private laboratories.

The MRI machine is used for disease detection, diagnosis and treatment monitoring.

Earlier, people belonging to low-income groups would undergo tests free of charge at the PIMS, while those who could afford the tests had to pay over Rs3,000. The same test costs between Rs15,000 and Rs20,000 in private diagnostic labs.

Sources said that the health ministry officials were also fully aware of the issue but they have turned a blind eye to the grave issue.

Health Minister Abdul Qadir Patel said that the PIMS hospital was now functioning under the MTI Act and unless the MTI law is done away with, the ministry will take the responsibility to resolve the issue. “Now all responsibility rests with the PIMS board and the administration,” he said.

No PIMS administration official was forthcoming to respond to queries regarding the faulty MRI machine issue despite repeated contacts by The Express Tribune. They only confessed that the MRI machine was lying useless and without being repaired for a long time.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 10^th, 2022.