An MRI machine is at private provider Xplore Radiology but not at the new Griffith public hospital. Photo: Xplore Radiology Griffith.
Concerns have been raised over why the new Griffith Base Hospital has a magnet room but no magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine, with no other facility in town providing emergency MRI scans after hours or on weekends.
Griffith health advocate Yvonne Turnell said she’d been contacted by two friends who recently had strokes and had to be driven two hours to access the facility at Wagga Base Hospital.
“The message seems to be to have your stroke during office hours, not on the weekend when you can’t get an MRI in Griffith.
“Once they arrive in Wagga, patients still must wait because that hospital is overloaded. It’s distressing, because you need an MRI as soon as possible, in case you are in danger of having another stroke,” Ms Turnell said.
She said those sharing their stories asked for their names to be kept confidential, for fear of repercussions when needing treatment in Wagga.
MRI machines are used to diagnose medical conditions, assess injuries, and in treatment planning.
There are two in Griffith – one each at private providers iMed Radiology and Xplore Radiology. Both facilities close at 5 pm on weekends and are shut on weekends.
Real estate agent Brendan Catanzariti heads a committee pushing for Griffith Base Hospital to break away from the Murrumbidgee Local Health District, the Wagga-based bureaucracy that makes resourcing decisions for Griffith. He said this underlined his case for a separate health district.
Brendan Catanzariti has vowed to push forward with a push to split Griffith health services away from Wagga. Photo: Denny Fachin.
“We had approval for an MRI machine at our hospital but it wasn’t delivered,” Mr Catanzariti said.
“Like everything else, Griffith is not their priority. We have to fight for basic needs in our hospital and always miss out.
“The MLHD is looking after 33 facilities. We are just one of them. How much time do they have for us? If we can do our own hiring and do our own budget we will be much better off.”
Winery owner Bill Calabria told a protest rally last month the new hospital had a magnet room built to house an MRI, but this was being used as a storage room instead.
Region asked MLHD why no MRI machine was at Griffith Base Hospital and whether an MRI machine was previously planned for the new hospital. It did not answer our questions by our deadline.
“There’s no transparency in anything MLHD do. They don’t even answer questions,” Ms Turnell said.
“How do they spend their money on each town? We don’t know.
“We need to be making our own decisions for our own health.”
If you know more about this story, contact Oliver Jacques on 0498 843 181 or [email protected]
