The impending crisis with diagnostic machines has unfolded at Osmania General Hospital (OGH).
From Friday night, the hospital does not have a CT-Scan facility. The equipment is crucial since the scanning is important before performing surgeries on victims of road accidents with head injuries, for brain stroke patients to know if there is any internal bleeding or clots in the brain.
Besides, CT-Scan is used to know the probability of patients having COVID-19 if they show symptoms of the infectious disease.
After rain water made its way into diagnostic rooms in the hospital’s Quli Qutb Shah block on Friday night, the CT Scan and MRI machines were shut down.
“We get at least five to six such cases a day. We cannot rely on MRI machine alone as it takes around half an hour for one patient to be scanned. And road accident victims or paralysis patients need emergency care. So CT scan is preferred,” sources in the hospital said.
The hospital has two CT Scan machines. One in the Out Patient block, another in the Quli Qutb Shah block. The CT Scan in OP block is dysfunctional. So the hospital was left with only one of the machines.
However, after rains pounded Hyderabad on Friday evening, water entered into the CT Scan machine in the diagnosis room in Quli Qutb Shah block and it was switched off. The result, no CT scan machine at the major hospital on Saturday.
“Now we don’t have a CT Scan machine. If there is a patient in need of emergency care, we are forced to use X-Ray or Ultrasound machines. This situation could have been avoided if the machine in OP block was repaired on priority basis,” sources said.
OGH and Gandhi Hospital are tertiary care hospitals where road accidents and other emergency cases are attended. Since only COVID-19 patients are attended at Gandhi Hospital, OGH was the only government tertiary care centre in Telangana where emergency cases are attended. With the defunct machines, a crucial process before surgeries could not be executed.
It was learnt that the engineering team from Telangana State Medical Services and Infrastructure Development Corporation (TSMIDC) are taking remedial measures.