(HT)
To address the acute shortage of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) machines in Delhi’s 36 government hospitals — a gap that often pushes patients toward expensive private diagnostics — Delhi health minister Pankaj Singh said on Wednesday that a proposal to roll out MRI services across all state-run hospitals will be placed before the cabinet on Thursday.
If cleared, the health department will float tenders for procurement and installation of MRI machines, enabling patients to access the crucial scans free of charge.
Around 20 hospitals are expected to receive the machines in the first phase. More details will be shared following the cabinet’s approval, the Delhi health minister said.
“We have prepared a proposal to introduce MRI machines in government hospitals. Once approved, tenders will be issued for procurement and installation,” Singh told HT on Wednesday.
Senior officials at Delhi government’s health department confirmed the plan, and said it aims to reduce the out-of-pocket expenses for patients on diagnostic tests.
Currently, only three government hospitals — including Lok Nayak, GB Pant, and Indira Gandhi Hospital — are equipped with MRI machines, according to health department officials.
At present, the wait time at these hospitals for an MRI scan can range from anywhere from 30 days to six months.
At GB Pant hospital, it can take a month or two for patients to get an MRI scan done, officials at the hospital, on condition of anonymity said. At Lok Nayak hospital, the situation is worse. Only if it is a life threatening situation that the hospital gets an MRI done on an urgent basis, which too might take a week. “But, in elective cases, the wait time can be six months to one year,” an official at the hospital said, asking not to be named.
Officials at the Indira Gandhi Hospital refused to respond to HT’s query on the wait time.
MRI scans, an essential diagnostic test that relies on strong magnetic fields and radio waves to produce detailed internal images, cost upwards of ₹5,000 in private diagnostic centres. But at government hospitals, where available, the scans are offered for free.
“MRI scans are vital for diagnosing cardiac, neurological, and orthopedic conditions. On average, we receive 25–30 MRI cases daily,” said a senior doctor from GB Pant Hospital’s cardiology department.
An RTI (Right to Information) query filed by activist Aman Kausik in February 2025 revealed that major hospitals — including Delhi State Cancer Institute, Sanjay Gandhi Memorial Hospital, GTB Hospital, Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences, Baba Saheb Ambedkar Hospital, Guru Gobind Singh Hospital, and Lal Bahadur Shastri Hospital — lack MRI facilities altogether.
In the absence of in-house MRI services, patients are either referred to private diagnostic centres or covered under the Delhi Arogya Kosh (DAK) scheme, which offers free scans to eligible residents with a family income of up to ₹3 lakh.
“We receive at least 20–30 patients daily for CT scans, and even for that, we have only one machine. MRI, being a more advanced diagnostic tool, isn’t available at our hospital. So we either refer patients through the DAK scheme or advise them to approach private centres,” said an official from GTB Hospital.
Similar constraints were reported at the Delhi State Cancer Institute and several other institutions. “A significant number of patients we see either do not reside in Delhi or are ineligible under the DAK scheme. In such cases, we’re unable to refer them for subsidised scans and often have to direct them to private diagnostic centres,” said an official from the Delhi State Cancer Institute, requesting anonymity.
