VARANASI: Seeking an X-ray report for medico legal and age determination purposes is difficult from the divisional and district hospitals as they are running without radiologists.The radiology department of Shiv Prasad Gupta divisional hospital, which was inspected by chief minister Aditya Nath Yogi in May to take stock of the situation, is being run by a radiologist who had got extension of a year after his retirement in 2016. He also left in May. With it, issuing of medico legal report or age determination certificate was stopped at the hospital. Chief medical officer VB Singh admitted on Thursday that permanent radiologist is not available at SPG divisional hospital and also at Deen Dayal Upadhyaya district hospital. On Wednesday, divisional commissioner Nitin Ramesh Gokarn directed Singh to make correspondence with the higher authorities in this connection.After the commissioner's directive, the radiologist of LBS Government Hospital, Ramnagar was attached with SPG divisional hospital as a temporary arrangement. This radiologist will look after X-ray department at the divisional hospital for three days in a week till a permanent radiologist is posted there.Though the health department officials initiated temporary arrangements at the divisional hospital, the DDU district hospital remained totally ignored. Chief medical superintendent of DDU district hospital SK Upadhyaya said, "The radiologist of this hospital had retired on March 31. Since then, the technicians are operating the X-ray department. They are giving X-ray film only to the patients to show it to the doctors of orthopaedic department for analysis as they are not authorized to prepare reports. The same practices are being followed at divisional hospital in the interest of patients of orthopaedic department.The X-ray department is being run by the technicians but the CT scan department is closed as only a radiologist can operate it, revealed Upadhyaya. The DDU district hospital also houses a trauma centre apart from emergency, indoor and outdoor patient departments. On an average, 150 patients turn up at divisional and district hospitals everyday for X-ray while 20 patients were catered at CT Scan unit per day till it functioned by March-end.

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