With MRI machine unrepaired, surgery on hold now for 12 days

Hyderabad: Lying for 12 days on the hospital bed in Osmania General Hospital, Shaikh Hafeez and his family are upset that the operation is not being done because the MRI machine is not working.

Hafeez fell down from the first floor and injured his spinal chord and back bone.

Advocate and General Secretary of People's Union for Civil Liberties Jaya Vindhyala explained, “We have written a letter to the chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao asking why the MRI machine in one of the most important government hospital is not functioning? Where are the poor patients to go? As they are not able to afford treatment in private hospital, they are waiting in the government hospital but there are no proper facilities.”

Hafeez who is in Ward No 115 on the ground floor has only been stabilised by the doctors. His mother Mumtaz Begum says, "Everyday the doctor comes and tells us that till the machine is not repaired nothing can be done. They are asking us to go out and get the scan done. The cost is Rs 8,000 for the scan and I don't have that."

A senior doctor in the hospital explained, "The machine works for a few days and then there are technical problems and it goes bust again. Due to that reason, we have to send patients outside for the scan."

The state government has sanctioned Rs 100 crores for OGH but the  emergency machines are yet to be procured and those in dire state of repairs are not being attended to.