October 19, 2009

Renfrew’s new CT suite will be unveiled October 28

The local community is invited to have its first look at Renfrew Victoria Hospital’s new CT service on October 28.

Tours of the addition to the hospital’s diagnostic imaging department will be offered from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m., followed by an information session beginning at 7:00 p.m. in Gem Hall at Groves Park Lodge. No pre-registration is required, and anyone interested is invited to attend.

“This is a very exciting development for our entire community, and we want everyone to understand the significance of having a CT service in Renfrew,” says RVH CEO Randy Penney.

“Of course, the most important aspect is that it will improve care and reduce the burden of travel for our patients,” he adds. “But this also has positive implications on a corporate level, freeing staff from travel duties and offering the equipment necessary to support and recruit today’s medical professionals.”

The 64-slice CT scanner being installed at RVH provides the highest level of resolution and quality image currently used for general medical applications. CT scanning provides detailed views of many types of body tissue including the lungs, bones, soft tissues and blood vessels. It is used in the treatment of emergency cases and can diagnose major diseases like cancer, stroke, pelvic-abdomincal disorders and osteoporosis.

The information session will feature a panel of speakers including Dr. Sherief Massoud, full-time radiologist and CT specialist at RVH; Dr. Max Buxton, chief of emergency medicine at the hospital, and a representative of GE Canada, the supplier of the new CT equipment.

They will talk about the various applications of CT as a diagnostic tool and what computerized axial tomography (CT) will mean for the patients served by RVH.

Each year, thousands of patient trips have been made to Pembroke or Ottawa for the diagnostic service. Hospital patients requiring CT scans often need to be transferred by ambulance with accompanying staff. Financial costs and lost time to accommodate ambulance schedules are significant. Other patients whose care could have been aided by a CT exam have had to forego the test because they were not able to travel.

Patients in the region currently wait up to two months for a non-urgent CT scan at another centre, which is double the provincial benchmark for CT wait times.

The CT scanner is scheduled to be delivered to the hospital this week (the week of October 19). It will take approximately a week to set up and on-site training will begin as soon as that is done.

Scans are expected to begin on a part-time basis early in November.

RVH and the Renfrew Victoria Hospital Foundation are responsible for providing the full $3 million investment to introduce CT to Renfrew, as well the ongoing costs of delivering a CT service.

A dedicated CT fund has been established by the foundation. Anyone interested in contributing to the fund or learning more is invited to contact the RVH Foundation office at 613-432-4851, ext. 263.

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(For more information, contact Randy Penney, CEO, Renfrew Victoria Hospital, 613-432-4851, ext. 260.)