Despite the government promising free healthcare for low-income patients, the on-ground reality of diagnostic machinery in public hospitals, tells a starkly different story.

Where the destitute patient exhausts their savings paying for imported medications and doctor consultations alone, those requiring imaging scans like the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), are made to bear additional costs for private tests given the dearth of imaging equipment in government teaching hospitals.

“The doctors at Khyber Teaching Hospital told my relative that he needed an MRI urgently, however the hospital did not have an MRI facility because of which we had to seek a private diagnostic facility, which charged us more for the same scan,” complained Sajid Khan, a chaperone from Dir.

The situation was no different in the Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC), where the MRI machinery was dysfunctional due to an impending maintenance check. Despite the HMC administration proclaiming the conduction of regular technical checks on the MRI machine by a private biomedical engineer, patient attendants like Gulzar Khan from Dera Ismail Khan, beg to differ.

“No private engineer visits the HMC hospital to fix the MRI machine,” retorted Khan, who too like Sajid Khan, had to take his relative to an expensive private lab for the scan.

According to sources, the two hospitals combined receive almost 1,500 requests for an MRI each month, and given the unavailability of the facility, both have to resort to using a much less accurate alternative for diagnosis, the Computerized Axial Tomography (CAT) scan.

Radiologists however, reveal that the MRI and CAT scan are two different technologies for diagnosis, and cannot be used interchangeably since where the MRI allows an in-depth scanning of the central and peripheral nervous systems, the CAT scan only provides surface level imaging of the thoracic and abdominal cavities. This implies that the MRI machinery is crucial for the early detection of various cancers, which during the initial stages of malignant tumor growth, are impossible to detect through a CAT scan and if left untreated can metastasize to other vital organs.

“An MRI must be performed at the right time in order for oncologists to devise a suitable treatment plan for the cancer patient,” said a doctor at the Lady Reading Hospital.

While the diagnostic quandary facing the two government hospitals is indeed concerning, the state of affairs is much worse in hospitals located in smaller districts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P), where patients requiring MRI, CT scans and ultrasounds are immediately told to seek treatment in bigger cities like Peshawar, putting further pressure on the already malfunctioning scanning facilities.

In fact, of all the attendants who poured their heart out while sharing their plight with The Express Tribune, many belonged to remote areas which lacked diagnostic healthcare facilities. One such case is of Muhammad Janas Khan from Charsadda, who upon travelling to HMC on the advice of his doctor for an urgent MRI for his loved one, was utterly disappointed at the paucity of a scanning facility there also. “Apart from bearing the travel costs to Peshawar, I also had to pay extra money for the private scan,” protested Janas Khan.

Commenting on the matter, a source from the K-P Health Department acknowledged the suffering of patients and their chaperones and emphasized the dire need for maintenance and upgradation of the imaging equipment.

“We are aware of the financial trouble facing patients and their families and are working on the timely installation of new MRI machines, which are delayed due to the recent ban on imports ,” announced Sajjad Khan, Khyber Teaching Hospital’s Public Relations Officer.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 27^th, 2023.