LAHORE, Jan 9: Out-of-order CT scanners and unavailability of MRI in five public hospitals in the city has diverted the load of these vital tests to the Children’s Hospital.

Last year, the hospital conducted 2,724 CT scans that included 1,019 referred to it from other public hospitals. Similarly, it conducted 4,056 MRIs, which also included 1,681 referred by doctors in other public hospitals.

It may be mentioned that until recently, only the Children’s Hospital had a fully functional CT scanner and equipment for MRI that served its own patients as well as those referred to it from Mayo Hospital, Shaikh Zayed Hospital, Services Hospital, Lahore General Hospital, Ganga Ram Hospital and Jinnah Hospital.

The Lahore General Hospital recently installed a new CT scanner. Being a specialized neurosurgery institution, the LGH was facing more problems than other hospitals as it had to send all its patients with serious head injuries to the Children’s Hospital for CT scans and MRIs.

A CT scanner is available for around Rs17.5 million while the equipment for MRI costs over Rs140 million. The Children’s Hospital got its MRI machine for Rs75 million after negotiations with the company, which agreed to the deal because it was the first machine sold to any Pakistani hospital about three and a half years ago.

The management of public hospitals complain that they do not have funds for purchasing these machines. “These machines are purchased under special budgetary allocations. No hospital has so far been allocated funds for them,” a senior doctor said, adding that boards of governors of autonomous public hospitals were expected to raise funds for acquiring sophisticated diagnostic equipment including CT scanners and MRI machines.

Talking to Dawn, LGH board of governors chairman Tariq Mahmood said the Children’s Hospital administration had cooperated with the hospital and accommodated its patients when its CT scan installation was delayed by about 10 days. He said the old CT scan was too worn out to meet the load that had increased to 30 to 40 CT scans a day. Mr Tariq said the old CT scan would be kept operational for emergencies.

Visits to the other five public hospitals revealed that their CT scanners were also too old to meet the increasing load of patients. Patients told this reporter that the scanners would stop functioning suddenly and they were either referred to another public hospital or told to get the test done privately.

A majority of the patients referred to the Children’s Hospital are provided the service free of cost.

The Children’s Hospital management said it wanted to use its CT scan and MRI services to generate resources to maintain the equipment and help the poor patients.