Digital X-ray machine at Darbhanga Medical College Hospital defunct, patients suffer

Darbhanga: The emergency wing of the Darbhanga Medical College and Hospital (DMCH) is facing major inconvenience due to the X-ray machines being non-functional due to voltage fluctuation, which has put patients in distress.

Patients who visit the hospital's emergency wing are having trouble getting X-ray tests done since the machines are not working for the past one-and-a-half months.

Currently, the hospital has four X-ray facilities- two manual and two digital but one of the machines were working at the moment.

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In the emergency wing, there is one digital and one manual, while in the paediatrics department, there is one manual X-ray and the super specialty wing has a digital machine.

The incident hit rock bottom after patients were unable to get an X-ray done on Tuesday due to the non-availability of film in the emergency wing. This has caused a major concern for poor patients in the city. Most of them had to wait in a long queue at the hospital in this regard.

According to DMCH Superintendent Dr Alka Jha informed TOI, "There was some problem in the machine installed in the emergency wing on Tuesday, but on Wednesday, except for the digital machine, other three were functional. Incidentally, the digital machine in the emergency wing is in warranty period and the supplier company representative was called, who cited voltage fluctuation as the reason for non-functioning."

Dr Alka also added that one month back she had convened a meeting of the company's representative and officials of the electricity department, and the representative had assured to replace the stabilizer which is yet to be done.

"Till 4 pm on Wednesday in the super specialty wing, 72 patients have been X-rayed and the rest 42 are in the queue," she added.