PESHAWAR: The MRI machines at the Hayatabad Medical Complex and Khyber Teaching Hospital here have broken down, troubling patients.
The directors of both medical teaching institutions claim that repairs are underway, so the scanners would be functional ‘very soon’.
The MRI machines are out of order due to faults that aren’t cov-ered in the maintenance agreements, according to sources.
They told Dawn that the HMC’s two-year agreement for repair and maintenance with the private firm was valid until 2027 but it didn’t cover UPS repairs.
The sources said the partial agreement was made by the administration to save money but on June 5, the system developed fault forcing the staff members to stop doing MRI scans.
‘Our timely action prevented the scanner from being fullydamaged as we tried to keep it standing, which is important. We were also quick to inform the administration about the issue,’ a radiologist told Dawn.
HMC director Dr Gulzar Ahmad Khan said that the MRI machine would become functional very soon.
‘The MRI machine is alright.
There is a problem in UPS for which new batteries have arrived along with a team of experts from Lahore,’ he said.
The director said installationwas in progress and the scanner would start functioning very soon.
The state-of-art MRImachine was installed in 2016 and performed 40-45 MRIs per day at the rate 50pc lower than the market’s.
‘As we have high-penance scanners and radiologists, even the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre sends patients to us under a memorandum of understanding signed when the former didn’t have its own machine,’ the radiologist said.