Donated in 2021, a portable X-ray machine at Jogeshwari Trauma Hospital is finally in use

Mumbai: A portable X-ray machine worth about ₹55 lakh, gifted to Jogeshwari Trauma Hospital in 2021 when Covid-19 was raging, stayed in its packing for nearly five years. It was finally put into service in early October.

The hospital's regular X-ray machine broke down during the Dahi Handi festival, and patients had to be sent to Cooper Hospital for their scans. With a new purchase likely to take time, the administration looked for alternatives and found the donated portable unit, still unopened, on its own premises. An engineer from the manufacturer was called in to install it.

Because the software had moved on through several versions in five years, the machine at first would not run, until the older software it needs was arranged. Doctors said the unit can be wheeled into intensive care or to a patient's bedside, which will help critically ill patients who cannot be moved.

Health activist Chetan Kothari has called for an audit of equipment across the municipal corporation's hospitals to find out whether other costly machines donated during the pandemic are lying unused.

Source: Free Press Journal