Health and well-being: With CT scan broken at BYL Nair Hospital, wait for patients gets longer
Radhika Salve, 43, sustained an injury on October 5 when she fell from a moving bus while alighting. She was rushed to the civilian tertiary care hospital – BYL Nair Hospital. After she was admitted, Salve was immediately ordered to do a CT scan of her brain.
But to her surprise, the doctors informed her that she would have to travel four kilometers to a diagnostic center for the scan. “When I fell down, I brushed my hands and legs. Although I didn’t get a fracture, I had badly injured my head which hurt. So the doctor asked me to undergo a CT scan. But later they informed us that the CT scan machine was not working ”, recalled Salve.
Considering the sad condition of the hospital, she took Discharge Against Doctor’s Advice (DAMA) and was later admitted to a private hospital. “If a big hospital like Nair doesn’t have a CT machine, how would they treat patients?” she asked.
When The Indian Express asked the hospital, officials said the CT scan machine has not been working for the past week due to a technical problem. And patients will have to wait another 15 days to use the facility, they added.
“We refer the patients out because the machine is not working. It has been a technical problem and we have ordered a part for the repair from Singapore,” said Dr Devidas Shetty, head of the X-ray department at the hospital.
On average, CT examinations are performed on approximately 50 non-emergency patients each day. In addition to that, they do computed tomography on about 10 emergency cases.
The patients are now being referred to a diagnostic center in Parel that the hospital has tied up with. “Until the problem is resolved, patients will be referred there. But patients would be charged a subsidized rate (around Rs 1,200),” said Dr Shetty.
But transferring patients in medical emergencies is challenging. Often, acute cases of head injury, trauma and intestinal perforation cannot be treated without the scan and are referred to other major hospitals such as KEM Hospital in Parel. This further adds to the waiting time for the patients in the hospital.
“We already have almost a month’s waiting time for a CT scan. These additional referred patients from Nair Hospital add to the pressure,” said a doctor from KEM Hospital.