The business of diagnosis at GTB

 NEW DELHI: “Blood test, madam? Ultrasound? X-ray? We can get any test you want done fast. There is a long queue for tests in the hospital,” says a woman in a pink salwar-kameez, trying to lure patients to get diagnostic tests done at one of the several hole-in-the-wall diagnostic labs across the road from Delhi government-run Guru Teg Bahadur (GTB) Hospital. She gets a share for every patient that she brings to these centres. The prices she offered were surprisingly low: A urine test for R50, a complete blood count for R60, a chest X-ray at R100 and a whole abdomen ultrasound for R250. At recognised diagnostic centres, these tests cost R200, R500 and R1,000, respectively. Such centres thrive around government hospitals, where patients have to wait days and sometimes months just to get routine tests done for free. The problem, of course, is that these centres are often run and staffed by untrained people, making the quality of tests unreliable, which can be life-threatening in a hospital environment. “The staff at such centres often diagnose wrongly. We have directed all our resident doctors to cross-check the test report with the clinical image,” said a senior doctor from the department of gynaecology. “There are discrepancies in about 10% of all test reports done in such labs. In a recent case, the eyes of the foetus were deformed, which the sonographer had failed to spot during the ultrasound of a pregnant woman. Despite cross-checking, we have to roughly get one in every seven tests repeated,” she said. But, the perpetually long waiting list for tests at the hospital ensures that private labs and their agents remain in business. “Across departments, we do about 300 ultrasounds in a day. There is a waiting list and patients are assigned dates. But if our machines develops a snag, the wait can stretch further,” said a technician at the hospital. “We have to wait at least five days to get a faulty machine repaired,” said the technician. GTB Medical Superintendent Dr Rajpal (who goes by one name) denied the long queue for tests and said the hospital did not accept test reports of private laboratories. “We conduct all tests at the hospital and don’t accept private lab reports. If some patients get in touch with touts who roam around the hospital in the guise of attendants, we cannot do much about that. But if we get a complaint regarding touts, we take action,” he said. Doctors disagree. “We cannot stop people from undergoing tests at private labs,” said a senior doctor in the department of medicine. “The basic problem is overcrowding and the shortage of manpower,” said an administrative official.