Dean Dr AC Mohanty confirmed receiving the report, and assured that action would be taken on it. The MRI machine at JJ is the only one of its kind in any public hospital in the state, and medical and non-medical staff are yet to get used to it, added Dr Mohanty. The staff will be sent for workshops and training programmes to ensure that the MRI's functioning smoothens and the waiting period is reduced, he informed.

Dr Mohanty also justified the decision to send a child outside for treatment, saying since the staff had feared that the child would get upset by the machine's sounds and not stay stationary when the test was in progress.

The dean alsorefuted complaints that patients were being made to wait for upto three weeks to get an MRI appointment, saying while routine patients could afford to wait awhile, emergency patients were taken up immediately.Purchased at a cost of Rs 11.5 crore in March 1996, the MRI was installed only in November 1997. After a slew of complaints against the functioning of the machines, Dr R G Bhusale, professor of forensic medicine and Dr A R Rathod, professor of paediatrics were appointed to probe the complaints. The committee spoke to staff in the MRI department, resident doctors and full time doctors.