CT Scanner Benefits Lautoka Hospital
Lautoka Hospital’s first ever state-of-the-art computerised tomography (CT) scanner is now in operation.
The latest machinery was brought into the country about two weeks ago and commenced operation last Wednesday.
So far, a total of 30 patients have successfully gone through the CT scanner.
Aspen Medical chief executive officer Annette Owttrim was present at the Lautoka Hospital on Tuesday to briefly explain its advantages to the hospital and its patients.
Ms Owttrim said prior to installing the CT scanner patients were required to travel to Nadi in an ambulance with staff and back.
“It is now more efficient to do that here, but it also means in some cases you’ve only got a small time frame to identify if there is something wrong with the patient and now we can,” she said.
“These machines are so fragile that we had the humidifiers installed before the machine so that we reduce the risk of this machine not functioning so we make sure that we have got everything so that this is state-of-the-art.”
She said the hospital also had the biomedical technicians trained so that they could be on site to help.
She also confirmed future plans to install a CT scanner at the Ba Hospital to service the Ba to Rakiraki areas.
The CT scanner at the Lautoka Hospital will service areas from Lautoka to Sigatoka.
Radiographer in charge of the CT scanner at Lautoka Hospital, Rohinendra Kumar said the new machine allowed more time for the staff to see more patients than compared to before.
Lautoka Hospital Medical Superintendent, Dr Rigamoto Taito said: “We have been waiting for long, almost five years and this is very much a welcoming news for our staff but most importantly for our patients.”
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