Defective X-ray plates stacked in the radiology department at SSKM. Picture by Rith Basu

X-ray plates of reputable brands supplied to the state-run SSKM Hospital’s radiology department are turning out to be unusable.

“A couple of times, we found a fresh expiry date sticker over the original on boxes of plates. When we removed it, we found that the films’ expiry dates had passed,” an SSKM paramedic told Metro.

“On an average, three to four plates are found to be defective in each box of 50,” he added, pointing to rolls of damaged films stacked behind doors and shoved under tables in the department.

The hospital buys conventional X-ray plates in four sizes. A box of 50 costs between Rs 510 and Rs 1,500.

The seven machines in the department conduct about 350 X-rays daily. According to an estimate, defective plates cost the department about Rs 500 a day. So, it loses Rs 15,000 per month and Rs 1.8 lakh a year.

“We had lodged complaints with the authorities but no action was taken,” said a technician who has been working for the hospital for 27 years.

The state government’s Central Medical Store has permitted a company called Electro Medical to supply X-ray plates to all government health establishments, said Arnab Roy, the medical officer-in-charge of SSKM.

Metro learnt that some private health organisations that procure X-ray plates from the same manufacturers, but at a higher price, never get a damaged plate.

“We pay between Rs 1,850 and Rs 650 for different sizes of conventional plates and each plate is of good quality,” said the managing director of a nursing home in Baguiati.

B.C. Pandey, the deputy general manager of Jindal Photo Limited, suppliers of an international brand of plates that SSKM procures, told Metro from Delhi that no distinction is made between the films supplied to government hospitals and private organisations. “It could be that the technicians in government hospitals are inadvertently damaging the films while taking them out from packets,” he said.

The medical superintendent and vice-principal of SSKM, Ashok Ghosh, said he had not received any complaint in this regard.

The head of the radiology department, Utpalendu Das, said he had heard of defective plates but felt that the lack of adequate number of technicians was a bigger problem.