RAWALPINDI, Sept 22: The patients at District Headquarters (DHQ) Hospital are referring to private laboratories as X-ray machine are non-functional for the last two days and the administration did not take steps to improve it.

While talking to Dawn, the patients at Outdoor Patients Department (OPD) on Saturday morning said that the doctors advised to get X-ray report from private clinics as the machine developed a fault.

“My mother is coughing for the last one month and the doctor advised to get an X-Ray of her chest, fearing Tuberculosis but there was no facility of X-ray machine,” said Muhammad Zafar, a resident of Chittian Hattian. He said that he requested the hospital officials to get the test from the emergency department but they behaved discourteously and refused to do it. He said that with limited resources, it was difficult for him to get X-ray from private clinic.

Imran Ahmed, a father of the patient suffering from bone fracture, said that his son had had a fracture in his left leg and he came to the doctor after three weeks but duty doctors advised to get X-ray report from a private clinic.

“If the government had no money to install new machines then it should close the government hospital, as it was a joke with poor people who came to get health facilities at government run hospitals,” he said.

An official of the Radiology Department requesting not to be named said that patients were suffering due to non-availability of X-ray machines in the OPD.

He said that patients with different injuries, particularly bone fractures, faced severe problems.

“The Radiology Unit of the emergency department is overburdened due to patients that we are receiving from the OPD,” he said.

The official said the X-ray machine developed a fault and the administration had been informed but they did not take the matter seriously.

Young Doctors Association (YDA) Chairman Dr Muhammad Haroon said that the condition of government run hospitals in the garrison cities exposed the tall claims of Punjab’s Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif.

He said that the C.T. Scan, MRI and X-ray machines went out of order and it was difficult for doctors to work without proper machinery and laboratory tests. He said that the Punjab government was not working to improve the health delivery system in the province.

When contacted, DHQ Hospital Medical Superintendent, Dr Sher Ali Khan Niazi said that the X-ray machine had developed fault and its manual board needed to be replaced.

He said that spare parts were not available in the country and it should be procured from abroad. He said that the OPD patients were provided facility at the emergency department and there was no issue of refusal of tests and referred them to private clinics. He said that the machine would be repaired soon.