E-Paper
Advanced diagnostic equipment going waste
THE NEWLY installed CT Scan machine at the Regional Diagnostic Health Centre (RDHC) at UHM hospital has been lying unused for the last fortnight as there is no trained technician in the hospital. The hospital administration is also in a quandary about how the IgM ELISA reader that is to be installed in the hospital in the near future will be handled. The ELISA reader is used in diagnosing Japanese Encephalitis (JE).
THE NEWLY installed CT Scan machine at the Regional Diagnostic Health Centre (RDHC) at UHM hospital has been lying unused for the last fortnight as there is no trained technician in the hospital. The hospital administration is also in a quandary about how the IgM ELISA reader that is to be installed in the hospital in the near future will be handled. The ELISA reader is used in diagnosing Japanese Encephalitis (JE).
The city’s biggest hospital boasts of the facility of thyroid test but due to the absence of salt this test has not been performed at the RDHC for the past one month. Patients are asked to get it done from private pathologies.
To add to the woes of patients, there is acute shortage of para -medical staff and almost no power supply during working hours. Most of the costly machines and advanced pathological test facilities are being wasted and patients still have to rely on private pathological clinics on the hospital premises.
The CT scan machine was installed at RDHC in UHM hospital under the Uttar Pradesh Health Services Development Programme (UPHSDP) and it was the first CT scan machine to be installed in any government hospital.
The machine has been lying defunct due to absence of a technician and experts feel that if the situation remains the same, then in the near future the machine, which cost around Rs 2 crore, will stop functioning.
Now the IgM ELISA kit is being brought to the city and it is to be installed at RDHC to diagnose Japanese Encephalitis (JE) more easily. At present there is only one ELISA reader in the city at the microbiology department of the GSVM Medical College. For this, CMO Dr VS Singh has forwarded a letter to the authority concerned.
How the ELISA reader will work in the hospital is a million dollar question for the hospital’s doctors. The RDHC was opened with much hype but over the months, due to lack of trained technicians and power shortage, basic tests like TLC, DLC, ESR, serum bilirubin, SGPT, lipid profile and several others have been carried out sparingly.
The irony of RDHC doesn’t end there. Two X-ray machines here remain unoperational as there is just one trained technicians to run eight X-ray machines in different departments. The same is the case with the ultra-sound machine.
Patients have to wait for several hours and by the time electricity supply is restored, the single doctor who performs sonography goes home because by 2 pm the hospital closes and patients have to get the test done at private pathologies.
Now the decision has been taken to install the IgM ELISA reader at the RDHC of UHM hospital but how it will help the poor patients is something to ponder about.
However, Dr BM Khare, chief consultant and in-charge of RDHC was optimistic about the ELISA kit and other tests. Dr Khare, while talking to Hindustan Times, said, “We are making a proposal to get installed a 65 KVA electric generator and if it is installed the rest of the problem will be overcome easily.”
Dr Khare, however, refused to comment on the shortage of para- medical staff in the RDHC of UHM hospital.
