Equipment shortage: 15 surgeries scheduled for three days at Sree Chitra postponed

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Surgeries in the Interventional Radiology department at Sree Chitra Institute will stop from today. All 15 surgeries scheduled for three days have been postponed. Patients have been informed about this.

The hospital is informing patients that the surgery will not be performed as scheduled due to a shortage of equipment and that it is not possible to say when the problem will be fixed. Patients who were admitted for emergency surgery have started being discharged. This is after doctors repeatedly requested the companies to supply the equipment, but it was confirmed that they would not supply it.

Sree Chitra has not renewed the contract with the companies supplying equipment after 2023. Surgical equipment was provided at the old rate till now. The companies took a stand that they could not provide it at the old rate after the price of foreign-made equipment increased. If the stance that surgical equipment should be purchased only through the Government e Marketplace (GeM) Portal as per the central government's instructions continues, the foreign-made equipment required for interventional radiology will not be available.

As the situation worsened, there were rumours that Director Sanjay Bihari had called a meeting of the department heads today, but the hospital authorities denied it. Considering the special situation, the director is likely to arrive today.

Three-year-old girl discharged!

A three-year-old girl who was admitted for surgery due to brain aneurysm was discharged yesterday. This was after the equipment was not available despite repeated requests from companies. The helpless doctors advised the parents to take the child to a private hospital and have the surgery done immediately. This would cost up to six times more. A cancer patient from Varkala was scheduled to have a gallbladder surgery but it was postponed the other day. With this, the cost of the surgery that was supposed to be done at Sree Chitra for Rs 23,000 has increased to Rs 1.5 lakh.

With the cancellation of the surgery, the two cath labs in the interventional radiology department will be idle. Only procedures for testing using a needle will be carried out.