An inordinate wait for MRI facility at the Gandhi Hospital here has finally come to an end. Health Minister T. Harish Rao inaugurated a state-of-the-art Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) machine and a catheterisation lab on Sunday.
The cost of MRI scanning at private diagnosis centres is steep, ranging anywhere between ₹5,000 and ₹15,000 or even higher, thereby making it unaffordable for the poor. Gandhi Hospital is a tertiary care centre, which receives a large number of critical patients, and with the MRI facility unavailable for the past several months, there was a long waiting list of patients to avail the facility at Osmania General Hospital.
The procedures that would be taken up at the cath lab includes coronary angiogram, permanent pacing, renal artery stenting and arterial embolisation for uncontrolled bleeding, among other procedures. Pointing to Cardiology department head Nitin Kabra, Mr Harish Rao said they had asked for the facility to be provided to prove their mettle.
