National 6 (Spotlight Weekly)

CT SCAN MACHINE AT BIR HOSPITAL
Sheer Negligence

The irresponsibility and negligence of the hospital management and the health ministry is exacting a high price from the patients

By THAKUR AMGAI

The concerned agencies are turning their blind eye even as the treatment of patients at the Bir Hospital has been largely affected due to the failure of the CT scan machine. The machine at the oldest hospital of the country has been gathering dust and the technicians are killing time catching flies since last more than two months.

Patient at Bir Hospital : Left in the lurch

Because of the failure, the patients are not only forced to pay a high price for the facility at private hospitals and nursing homes, they are also bound to suffer the inconveniences and delay in treatment. “I paid Rs. 3200 for a facility that would be available at Rs. 2200 here,” said Ram Krishna Regmi of western district of Tanahun, who was attending his mother at the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the hospital. “It took me more than an hour to travel to a private facility to get the CT scan done and obviously had to suffer inconvenience as I had to take my mother (the patient) also.”

The hospital management and the Ministry of Health has shown sheer negligence in a serious issue like this which imparts very adverse effect in the treatment of the patients suffering from head injuries. Even after the passage of two months the solution to the problem has not been clear. The ministry has done nothing more than the formation of a probe committee. It did not show enough care in monitoring the problem on time. The spokesman at the ministry of health was even quoted as saying that the issue does not fall within the responsibility of the ministry.

The government has formed a committee headed by Dr. Kalyan Raj Pande, a retired official of the Health Ministry, to probe the reason of the failure and submit suggestions to the ministry. The committee, too, is working at a snail’s pace. It has already held a couple of meetings at the Ministry, but it is still unclear when its report will be ready.

The patients have suffered the most. Although the technicians and doctors at the hospital rule out suffering and deaths because of the failure of the machine, one of the radio stations reported that there has been more than a dozen deaths because of the failure of the machine at the hospital. Technicians and doctors say that it is only a diagnosing tool. And does not effect in treatment. They claim that deaths occur because of the flaws in treatment. However, improper or delayed diagnosis can effect the treatment in general. When asked about the deaths or losses due to the failure of machine at the hospital a doctor at the emergency department of the hospital said in a very hostile manner, “How many years has it been since the CT scan machine has been available at the hospital. Did all the patients used to die before that?”

The machine was installed at the hospital three years back at the cost of about Rs 30 million. According to Krishna Koirala, Radiography inspector at the hospital, there used to be 8 to 10 CT Scans on average everyday. There has been no work since two months. When this scribe entered the CT scan theatre, Koirala was busy chatting with one of his colleagues. Asked about the reason for the delay of the maintenance he said, “Certain delays are normal in government works.”

Due lack of proper manpower, even the problem has not been ‘diagnosed’ yet. According to Koirala, the machine has already produced more than 4,87,000 slides in total and certain parts of the machine need to be replaced time to time. The authorized engineer and technicians for the company are not available in the country, which has resulted in the delay. The machine was brought from Semaju company of Japan. Koirala said, “On operation the machine shows the message “tube voltage trouble” making it impossible to operate.”