McKie – CT scan machine now fully operational

The CT scan machine at the Milton Cato Memorial Hospital is finally up and running.{{more}}

The disclosure was made by Minister of Health Cecil Mckie during a press briefing yesterday, Monday, October 3, at the Ministry of Health Conference room.

The CT scanner, which was purchased from US company General Electric (GE), arrived in St. Vincent and the Grenadines in February 2011, and was made functional on August 15.

However, according to the Health Minister, only six procedures have been done since the machine was made functional. He explained that a number of procedures, which were required to make the machine fully operational, have now been completed.

“Over the last two weeks, we got in the final two pieces of equipment. These are the UPS and the Injector, and these two pieces of equipment will now complete the series of pieces that we need to be able to perform all of the necessary procedures,” Mckie said.

The Minister also revealed that engineers from GE were on island to install the final pieces of equipment.

He further stated that his Ministry is now awaiting confirmation from the application specialist and “we hope that late this week or early next week, we will have that confirmation that they will come in and do the final set of training for the most sophisticated procedures for that CT scan machine.”

The Health Minister also stated that maintenance is going to be a very important part of the CT scan operation.

“As a result, we have confirmed with the folks at GE, that they will accommodate two persons from St. Vincent and the Grenadines; an engineer and the person in charge of maintenance at the Milton Cato Memorial Hospital.”

The two individuals are Edmond McKenzie and Garfield Henderson. On October 17, they will be heading to General Electric for a two-week training course for the operation of the machine.

A CT (computerized tomography) scanner is a special kind of X-ray machine. Instead of sending out a single X-ray through your body, as with ordinary X-rays, several beams are sent simultaneously from different angles.(AA)