Covid-19 patients in the Darjeeling district hospital have no access to CT scan, a basic diagnostic tool for treatment, and more alarmingly, the facility has been forced to start conducting X-rays for both Covid-19 and general patients at the same unit since Saturday despite the obvious risk of the spread of the infection.

“CT scan is the main diagnostic tool to see the severity of infection in the lungs, but unfortunately, we don’t have a CT scan facility in Darjeeling,” said a doctor.

Doctors say the first test advised for patients showing Covid-19 symptoms is a computerised tomography (CT) scan to understand the severity of the infection. In its absence, doctors need to rely on chest X-ray.

Until Friday, hospital authorities said they were not conducting X-rays on Covid-19 patients admitted to the Darjeeling district hospital. The hospital’s demand for a portable X-ray machine has not yet been met.

Doctors were not using the same X-ray room for Covid and non-Covid patients for fear of infection and were treating Covid-19 patients by simply “monitoring temperature and other vital parameters (like oxygen saturation level).”

Since Saturday, Dr Subasish Chanda, the superintendent of the Darjeeling district hospital, said they had started taking X-rays of Covid patients at the same unit where scans of non-Covid patients are taken, but “at different hours and after sanitising the place”. “It is definitely risky (for non-Covid patients),” admitted Dr Chanda.

In Darjeeling town, which is the district headquarters, none of the three private hospitals as well has facilities for a CT scan.

Between 2005 and 2007, citizens of Darjeeling had voluntarily pooled in Rs 43 lakh to set up a CT scan unit but the venture was unsuccessful.

Amar Singh Rai, chairman of Rogi Kalyan Samiti of Darjeeling district hospital, on Friday wrote to chief minister Mamata Banerjee requesting a CT scan machine in the Darjeeling district hospital. Rai said it had been approved in 2019.

The Telegraph on May 17 reported Covid-19 patients had no access to ventilators at the Darjeeling district hospital. Dr Chanda had then stated four machines would arrive soon.

On Sunday, he said five ventilators had arrived from the government hospital in Kalimpong, but the machines had not yet been put to work as work to set up a critical care unit and high dependency unit was on. “Rain in the past 48 hours has slowed down work but very soon it will be completed,” said Dr Chanda.

Ajoy Edwards, president of the GNLF Darjeeling branch committee, has criticised the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration’s plan to develop infrastructure for trekking in Rimbick at an estimated cost of Rs 16 crore instead of setting up a CT scan facility “for Rs 1 crore.”

“Is it leadership crisis or leadership corruption?” asked Edwards who added that the amount (Rs 16 crore) could have been used to overhaul health care in the hills.