Wait for MRI at AIIMS still up to one year despite 24x7 tests

NEW DELHI: Man Singh was at the radiology department of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi, waiting patiently for an MRI appointment for his three-year-old daughter Maithili

- Soumya Pillai

The 38-year-old, who had travelled from Jalandhar in Punjab, was at the premier hospital in the Capital after his daughter developed a suspected tumour in her neck.

However, Singh's four-hour wait on Tuesday was in vain. After hospital authorities repeatedly assured him that Maithili's appointment would be fixed "soon", he was finally turned away at 4pm and was asked to come on Wednesday morning instead.

This is an everyday affair at the country's most prominent government hospital - AIIMS only has three MRI machines, two of which run 24x7-and the hospital is only able to carry out 20-22 MRI scans in a day. The hospital itself, though, records a daily patient load of 30,000 people on average. The exact number of people coming in for scans cannot be confirmed as this number is higher than the actual scans conducted.

The result is that the wait time at AIIMS for an appointment for an MRI scan can go up to a year, with doctors at the radiology department of AIIMS saying that as on July 4, the next available date for getting an MRI for nonemergency cases was the first week of June 2024.