X-Ray machine lies unused for 11 years in Champawat

ALMORA: For eleven long years, residents of Pati, the town which is headquarters of the tehsil with the same name in Champawat district, would trudge 28 kilometres to Lohaghat if they had to get an X-Ray done, even though the local health centre had a machine just for this purpose. Finally, the machine is going to be put to use, with a technician being appointed for it.
The X-ray machine was made available for the health centre under the MPs’ quota in 2004, four years after Uttarakhand received statehood. However, even after it was installed, there was no technician to operate it, and the machine sat unused in the two-building hospital. Patients were forced to continue travelling to Lohaghat for the simple procedure.
Such is the sorry state of the hospital that patients don’t rely much on Pati PHC and travel to Lohaghat for any kind of illness anyway. However, things are looking to change for the better. The district medical office has employed the darkroom assistant of the district hospital at Champawat as the new technician of Pati PHC. He will now operate Pati’s proverbial white elephant.
Speaking to TOI, the district’s chief medical officer VS Toliya said, “We didn’t have a technician for all these years. The entire state lacks health staff and doctors. We are trying to meet the requirements, depending on our resources. We have now got a technician and the X-Ray machine has been tested. It is working properly. However, we need other material, including films, cassette and screens to be able to operate the machine.”
It’ll take another 15 days to receive the required accessories, added Toliya. Residents hope that they may not have to travel to Lohaghat once the machine starts operating. But they are equally sceptical on when the machine will finally perform its intended function. “If the government takes 11 years to bring a single technician for the X-Ray machine, I wonder how many months it will take to make it fully functional. I don’t see anything less than a month,” said Harish Bisht, a resident of Pati.
Pati is one of the biggest rural tehsils of Champawat district, with a population of 48,000. However, its PHC does not even have a pathology wing. There are no approved posts for lab technicians. Even for simple blood tests for malaria, the patients have to run to Lohaghat.