Millions of dollars of state-of-the-art medical equipment has been moved into the new Wagga Rural Referral Hospital as its opening draws nearer.
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The centrepiece of the new equipment being installed into the hospital is the $2.7 million Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) machine, which has been installed on the ground floor of the new building.
The old Wagga Base Hospital did not feature an MRI machine, with patients requiring its use forced to travel to private clinics for vital scans as part of their treatment.
However, it will initially only be available for inpatient use, though hospital management are working to make its services available to a broader section of the community.
“We need to maximise the utilisation of that equipment – it’s $2.7 million worth of equipment and we need to make sure we get the maximum value out of that money and providing a service for the community at large is part of that consideration,” hospital general manager Denis Thomas said.
“These things take a little bit of time. What we’re aiming at is in the new year, as we move into the hospital, that (outpatient) service will be available.”
The hospital is required to apply for and be granted a special licence to make its MRI machine accessible to outpatients.
Just down the hallway from the MRI machine, a new CT scanner has been installed in the new hospital building, which will give clinicians a greater ability to analyse and share its readings.
“The thing that changes is the focus on digital imaging and the capacity to store those images and make them available for clinicians to review for subsequent examinations,” Mr Thomas said.
A floor above, two new angiography suites will allow cardiologists to perform a range of heart procedures not available for patients in the current hospital.
The building team is set to hand over the new hospital building on November 25, with preparations to begin the big move from the old facility to begin shortly after that.
However, there is still much ahead for the building team according to Hansen Yuncken project manager Michael Martin.
“We finish this and then they all move out of the old hospital, and then we start pulling the old hospital down, which is going to be a bit of a project in itself,” he said.
“While it’s not as intensive as this, it’s something we need to have a good eye on.”
The new Wagga Rural Referral Hospital is slated to open in mid-January.
