Anantnag: The patients in south Kashmir’s Anantnag district are facing hardships due to the non-availability of the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) facility in the region.
The Government Medical College (GMC), Anantnag is bereft of a crucial MRI facility, forcing the patients to visit private diagnostic centers in Srinagar.
“I had to pay a hefty amount to a private clinic after the doctors advised me to perform an MRI scan,” said Javed Ahmad, a patient from Anantnag.
Ahmad said that poor patients like him suffer for the want of the facility.
The scan costs a patient Rs 5000 to Rs 7000 at a private diagnostic centre.
Another patient said that the patients from outlying villages had to move from clinic to clinic to find an MRI diagnostic centre.
GMC Anantnag was established in 2019 and the facility caters to the needs of hundreds of patients daily.
An official at the facility said that every week two to three patients are referred to other hospitals in Srinagar for the scan.
“The referrals not only overburden our tertiary care hospitals but also add to the treatment cost of patients,” he said.
Medical Superintendent GMC, Anantnag, Dr Muhammad Iqbal Sofi told Greater Kashmir that an MRI facility had been sanctioned a few months ago but the machine was yet to be received.
“We hope to receive the machine soon,” he said.