Raiganj, April 9: Thanks to a malfunctioning machine, the district hospital here is currently unable to conduct even simple blood tests.

The hospital’s electrocardiogram (ECG) machine, too, is lying idle having run out of paper, on which the reports are printed, 10 days ago.

The patients are being asked to get blood tests and ECGs done from outside, where they have to pay four to six times more than what they would have paid at the hospital.

According to the superintendent of the hospital, Swapan Kumar Pal, the semi-auto-analysis machine of the pathology department went out of order on March 17. An employee of the department, Mrigen Das, said the machine is used for all biochemical tests, including ascertaining the levels of sugar, haemoglobin, cholesterol, urea, bilirubin and other substances in blood.

“Without the machine, we can conduct almost no test other than the one used to identify blood groups,” Das added.

The superintendent said the Rs 3-lakh machine, which was bought two years ago with funds from State Healthcare System Development Project II, has been giving them trouble from the very beginning.

“It went out of order within the first few days. We have spent over Rs 1.5 lakh on its repairs in the past two years,” Pal said.

“I believe there is no use repairing it again. It would be better to buy a new one. I have already written to the North Dinajpur district chief medical officer of health (CMOH) and waiting for his reply,” the superintendent added.

The ECG machine, on the other hand, has no major defects. Only the paper for the ECG report is in short supply. Pal said the hospital authorities have sent an indent for the paper to the district store, but admitted that it has not arrived yet, causing inconvenience to patients.

Shantanu Halder, the CMOH, said he has already referred the matter of buying a new semi-auto-analysis machine to the state health department. He added that he is hopeful that the problem would be solved soon.