Health officials cut the ribbon yesterday on a second machine used to diagnose most cancers, brain and heart disease.
The new PET-CT scanner cost almost $4 million and has been in operation since mid-April.
And while it won’t cut any waitlists in half, it will eat into the roughly twenty-five-hundred (2,500) procedures performed each year.
That’ll take some pressure off the existing scanner that has also been upgraded to the same standard as its new neighbor at the Health Sciences Centre.
(VOCM News)
A second machine will also help complete time-sensitive clinical trials toward licensing from the nuclear safety commission, since nuclear isotopes are part of the process.
That licensing would also allow isotopes to be sent from St. John’s to Corner Brook for a third PET-CT scanner that’s been promised since 2014, with $2 million still held in trust to buy it.
Dr. Jeff Flemming, clinical lead for nuclear medicine, could not overstate the importance of now having two PET-CT scanners in the province.
But he acknowledged their operation and capacity continues to be limited by staffing challenges.
Dr. Jeff Flemming (VOCM News)
“We have enough staff to run both cameras right now (but) a lot of those staff came from our nuclear medicine department, so we are taking from one side to give to the other,” he said. “And so like everybody else in the country, we’re limited by staff, we need to recruit, and that’s a huge priority for us.”
Flemming said the licensing and third PET-CT scanner for Corner Brook are expected to be in place within two years.
Yesterday’s unveiling was dedicated to the memory of Dr. Peter Hollett, a professor of nuclear medicine at MUN, who died suddenly in November.
