An elderly woman who had to climb two flights of steps at the Gżira health centre in pain for an X-ray was told two months later her tests were lost but they have now been found.
The X-rays were traced by the health authorities that scrambled into action after The Times put questions about them.
The X-rays, it transpired, had been archived before a report about them was written up.
On Tuesday, 77-year-old Tessie Micallef complained that she had never been told the outcome of her hip and knee X-rays, taken in January, despite several calls to enquire about them.
"Going up those stairs was excruciatingly painful and it was all in vain," the distraught St Julians woman said.
Mrs Micallef, a widow, suffers from daily dizzy spells and, at times, can barely stand up. "Can you imagine what a sacrifice it was for me to go for an appointment in the morning?"
After months in agony, Mrs Micallef went for a hip and knee X-ray in an attempt to find out whether constant pain in her right leg was because she needed a joint replacement or whether it was the result of arthritis.
When, after weeks of waiting, the results had not yet turned up, Mrs Micallef called the health centre, only to be told that the results had not yet arrived from hospital.
"Even my family doctor found it weird that the results took so long to come," she said.
The widow claimed that, after calls to different departments, she was finally told that the X-rays had been misplaced and she needed to go back to have others taken.
"That is ridiculous. How can someone lose an X-ray? Misplacing a letter might be understood but not an X-ray. It was enough of a sacrifice to go to the health centre once. There is no way I will go back," she said.
One of her three children had to take the day off from work to accompany her to the health centre. "It was a sacrifice for me to go," she said.
Questions sent to the health authorities last week were answered within a few hours and a spokesman for the Health Parliamentary Secretariat said the relevant X-rays were "traced in the archive within a few minutes" of receiving the patient's details.
"It resulted that, somehow, the X-rays were archived without being reported." The spokesman said the X-rays have been referred for reporting and, once the report is ready, the patient would be called to the health centre and informed of the result.
The spokesman said that the digitalisation of X-rays and the availability of X-ray reports had reduced the need to repeat X-ray examinations to the barest minimum.
"Digitalised X-rays can be accessed at all times and the availability of online reports avoids duplication of examinations," he said, adding that through the report computerisation system, reports on analysed X-rays can be seen by staff anywhere within hospitals and health centres.
Last November, Social Policy Minister John Dalli said he was "not pleased" with the state of affairs at the Gżira health centre, saying it was unwelcoming not only for disabled persons, as he announced that it was likely to move to Zammit Clapp Hospital.