The new Griffith Base Hospital is missing key equipment, say health advocates. Photo: Oliver Jacques.
Griffith Base Hospital has a dedicated room to accommodate a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine and could get one in the future, says the Wagga-based health bureaucracy that makes resourcing decisions for the facility.
Residents have raised concerns about the lack of a machine in the newly built hospital, with the two private providers in town only providing MRI services during office hours on weekdays.
Health advocate Yvonne Turnell said she knew of two people who recently had strokes on weekends, so had to be driven two hours to access the facility at Wagga Base Hospital.
On Wednesday, The Murrumbidgee Local Health District (MLHD) responded to questions on why the hospital doesn’t have its own MRI service.
“The new hospital includes a dedicated, purpose-built space for a MRI service, with an MRI machine identified as part of future medical imaging expansion,” a spokesperson said.
“For more than 10 years, Murrumbidgee Local Health District has purchased MRI services in Griffith from a private provider. This is common practice in regional NSW to ensure community access and the long-term viability of local healthcare.
“In the small number of cases where an MRI cannot be performed locally, established referral and transfer pathways are used to ensure patients receive the care and diagnostic assessment they require.”
Ms Turnell said this was not good enough.
“So if you arrive at Griffith Base Hospital suffering from a stroke and cannot get to a private MRI machine, you need to wait until you are transported by ambulance two hours away, cutting into the four-hour window you have to stop more damage being caused by the stroke?” she said.
“We are seriously in big trouble.”
There is no MRI machine at the new Griffith hospital, but could one arrive soon? Photo: Wikimedia commons.
She said those most disadvantaged were in small towns west of Griffith such as Hillston and Hay, which are more than three hours’ drive from Wagga Wagga Base Hospital.
Real estate agent Brendan Catanzariti, who is leading a push for western Riverina hospitals to split away from the MLHD, was also not impressed.
“Patients requiring urgent imaging should not have to rely on referral and transfer pathways to access what should be a basic hospital service,” he said.
“Nor should the region be told to wait indefinitely for ‘future medical imaging expansion’, especially when the physical space and infrastructure have already been provided.”
He said the hospital also didn’t have a a CT angiogram service, which tests for blockages and other problems in your arteries.
MLHD stressed that the new hospital did provide many other services.
“Griffith Base Hospital currently provides a comprehensive range of medical imaging services on-site, including x-ray, CT, ultrasound and nuclear medicine,” a spokesperson said.
