Rawalpindi The facility of MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) scan has been made available for public here at Holy Family Hospital in town that is certainly a land mark achieved by the administrations of Rawalpindi Medical University and HFH. It is important that Rawalpindi is the fourth largest city of the Punjab province but the facility of MRI had not been made available for general population in public sector hospitals of the district and patients had to go to private set-ups for these costly investigations. Earlier, the facility of MRI was provided to public through the equipment installed here at the HFH in 2005 however it worked properly for not more than 12 months in all since its commissioning as it remained out of order for most of the time and the patients requiring it had to avail it at private set-ups. The breakdowns occurred at the installed MRI machine periodically and in 2009, the Punjab Chief Minister Mian Shahbaz Sharif asked the provincial health department to look into the matter to resolve the issue on permanent basis but nothing was done at that time. The patients requiring the facility had been suffering a lot for years because of unavailability of MRI facility in any public sector hospitals of the district. The MRI scan costs Rs8,000 to Rs20,000 at private setups while the facility in public sector hospitals costs not more than Rs3,500. The Chief Minister of Punjab Mian Shahbaz Sharif, Minister of Health, Secretary Health Najam Shah and Dr. Muhammad Aslam, Chairman Board of Management of Rawalpindi Medical College and Allied Hospitals took notice of the problem and allocated a fund of Rs 200 million (20 Crore) on urgent basis for installment of MRI Scan at HFH, said Senior Registrar at HFH Dr. Zahid Minhas while talking to ‘The News’ on Sunday. He said the MRI has been installed within one year at HFH after the release of funds due to untiring efforts of Vice chancellor Rawalpindi Medical University and chief of Allied Hospitals Professor Muhammad Umar, Medical Superintendent at Holy Family Hospital Dr Shafiq Sarwar, Dr Shahzad, Professor Iftikhar Khan and Dr. Jahangir Khan from Radiology Department. He said the effort of local leader of the ruling PML-N Muhammad Hanif Abbasi, who has always played a pivotal role in different projects of Rawalpindi is also instrumental in the MRI Project. The state of the art new radiology complex has been constructed in record time of one year and all radiology facilities including MRI would be provided to public under one roof, he said. He added the radiology complex has a large space for patients as waiting area. The MRI has started working within two months of installation and is providing high quality MRI services, he said. He added the MRI machine is of latest model and would help in diagnosing complicated cases. As all the three teaching hospitals including Benazir Bhutto Hospital, District Headquarters Hospital and HFH attached with RMU have CT scan facilities available already for poor and admitted patients free of cost. After installation of MRI, the radiology facilities have been completed and Holy Family Hospital has become A category hospital which is providing almost all types of radiology tests, said Dr. Minhas. It is important that the Centre for Liver and Digestive Diseases (CLD) in Department of Medicine at HFH has already facilities of Endoscopic Retrograde Cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) and Colonoscopy procedures which are done for diagnosis and management of various pancreatic and biliary diseases. The Young Doctors Association has also appreciated the installation of MRI and hope that it would help improving postgraduate training. Dr. Minhas said the state of the art radiology department at HFH would not only help in training of post graduate trainees but also provide facilities for patients from the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi along with patients who are referred from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and AJ&K.
