Lahore General Hospital says CT, ultrasound and X-ray are free around the clock in its emergency department; MRI runs until midnight.
LAHORE: Lahore General Hospital’s radiology department performs about 300 CT scans, 500 ultrasounds and nearly 70 MRI scans every day, the hospital’s medical superintendent said on Saturday, ahead of World Radiography Day.
Medical Superintendent Prof Dr Faryad Hussain said CT scan, ultrasound and X-ray services were available free of charge 24 hours a day in the emergency department, while MRI ran until midnight. The aim, he said, was to spare patients the heavy cost of private diagnostics and make sure they were scanned in-house without delay.
For families in Lahore, the cost gap is real. Private CT and MRI scans can cost thousands of rupees, and patients referred out of government hospitals often lose time as well as money. LGH is a tertiary referral hospital that also takes patients from neighbouring districts.
The hospital did not say how long non-emergency patients wait for an MRI appointment or how many scanners it runs.
Prof Dr Jodat Saleem, principal of Ameer-ud-Din Medical College (AMC), the hospital’s teaching affiliate, said radiology was the backbone of modern medicine and that effective treatment was impossible without timely, precise diagnosis. He said AMC would use all available resources to give young doctors and postgraduate residents modern training and research opportunities, to raise diagnostic standards across Pakistan.
Dr Fatima Asif said X-ray, ultrasound, CT, MRI and PET imaging had transformed early detection of heart disease, cancer and neurological disorders, and that modern radiology helped avoid unnecessary complex surgery and allowed precise treatment planning.
Radiologists also stress the other side of the technology: CT uses ionising radiation, so scans should be ordered only when clinically justified, especially for children and pregnant women. The hospital did not comment on its policies for this.
World Radiography Day is marked on November 8, the anniversary of Wilhelm Röntgen’s discovery of X-rays in 1895.
The event comes days after LGH formed a vigilance team and suspended four officials for negligence, and as Punjab expands imaging-heavy services such as its Rs5bn stroke care programme, which depends on fast CT scanning.
Leave a Reply