Nagpur: In a good news for patients in Nagpur and Vidarbha, the state-of-the-art PET-CT scan machine restarted at the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Nagpur after a new medical physicist joined the Department of Nuclear Medicine. The PET-CT scan machine had been lying unused for nearly a month as the lone physicist quit while the department of nuclear medicine failed to initiate a fresh recruitment drive, a local media report said.
Though the department has adequate faculty and other paramedical staff, they remained without much work during this period, the report said.
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According to Dr Prashant Joshi, Executive Director of AIIMS-Nagpur, four PET-CT scans were performed on Monday. The backlog of 125 patients will be cleared in two-three weeks.
Daily around 10 patients, mainly suffering from cancer, were being investigated for spread of malignancy by the PET-CT scanner, which is the only such set up in a government hospital in Maharashtra. With the lone machine and lone physicist, the department had been working with a seven-day wait list of patients. Now, in the last four weeks, the wait list has gone beyond seven days and patients may have to wait for longer duration for their turn, the report added.
PET-CT produces 3D images of the body and aids precise diagnosis of any abnormalities. It is done free of cost for poor patients while it costs around Rs 7,000 for others. The charge is Rs 25,000 in private.
