Daily Times

PESHAWAR: The CT scan machines at Lady Reading Hospital Peshawar (LRH), the biggest teaching hospital in the province, have been out of order for several days, resulting in multiple problems for patients faced problems, Daily Times learnt on Tuesday. In the LRH emergency outdoor Patient department (OPD), there was only one CT scan machine in the entire LRH hospital but because of the lack of interest of the officials of the hospital, the machine is out of order and patients were compelled to undergo CT scans from the open market with high fee rates.

Imran, a visitor belong to Charsadda, said that he brought his nephew to the hospital but when the doctor prescribed a CT scan to them, there were no facilities in the LRH hospital and they were compelled to undergo the CT scan from private facilities at much higher rates. “The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government had claimed that they would provide all health facilities to people in public hospitals, but the situation hasn’t changed and the poor still face problems,” Imran lamented.

Another health technician in LRH complained that most of the time, male technicians were conducting ultra sound of patients, which broke a cultural taboo. When contacted, LRH Media spokesperson Zulfiqar Babakhel said that for the last two days, the CT scan facility was unavailable in the hospital and the technical staff of the hospital was trying their best to repair it as soon as possible. He added that they were charging patients about Rs. 1300 for CT scans, while in private hospitals it went up to as high as Rs.2500.

It merit mention here that Lady Reading Hospital Peshawar received around 5000 OPD patients every day across the province while from patients also visited the hospital FATA and Afghanistan for treatment.