Around 1,500 patients who need radiation therapy are facing delays at the Maharagama Apeksha Hospital because its CT simulator is not working, the Society of Government Radiological Technologists of Sri Lanka said, according to the Daily Mirror.

The machine is not old or broken. A new CT simulator was installed to replace the hospital’s previous unit and was handed over to hospital staff last month for clinical use. It has remained unusable since.

A software problem, not a hardware one

The association said the fault is one of incompatibility between the new machine’s software and the software the hospital uses for radiation therapy planning. The two systems will not work together.

A CT simulator produces the images oncologists use to plan where radiation should be directed and at what dose. Without it, treatment cannot be planned accurately, and the planning step sits ahead of the treatment itself — so a machine that cannot be used stops the queue rather than slowing it.

What it costs patients

The association said the delay is causing severe difficulties for patients waiting for treatment, and pointed to the alternative: obtaining radiation therapy privately costs a patient between Rs. 500,000 and Rs. 2 million.

Apeksha, the national cancer hospital at Maharagama, is the main public provider of radiation oncology in Sri Lanka. For patients who cannot meet private costs, there is no practical substitute.

Not reported

The filing does not say when the incompatibility was identified, who supplied or commissioned the machine, or whether the procurement specified compatibility with the hospital’s existing planning software. It does not say what the Ministry of Health or the hospital administration have done since the fault was found, or give any timeline for a fix.

It also does not state what interim arrangement, if any, is in place for the 1,500 patients, nor how long the average wait has become. No response from the Ministry of Health, the hospital director or the supplier is reported.

A single-source report

This story rests on one verified newsroom. Ada Derana has also carried the case, but its site has returned a CloudFront block to this desk for eighteen consecutive days and could not be fetched or cited. No other verified outlet reachable from here had filed on it at the time of writing.

Source: Daily Mirror.