Breast X-ray machine ‘top priority’

Press, 8 December 1988, Page 4

Breast X-ray machine ‘top priority’

By

SARAH SANDS

Replacing an out-dated breast X-ray machine should be a top priority of the Canterbury Hospital Board, said a board member, Mr David Close, yesterday.

The board health services committee yesterday received a report from the chairman of radiology services, Professor Robin Gibson, which said that the. existing mammography machine, installed in 1977, was obsolete. The machine could not detect fine, calcifications in the breast, nor did it allow for breast compression or magnification techniques, “all of which are now standard on modern equipment for diagnostic purposes,” said Professor Gibson.

A replacement unit would cost about $125,000, he said. Mr Close said the machine must be replaced regardless of what the board did about a breast cancer screening programme. “I am disturbed to know that sometimes we

have to send our patients to a private laboratory to have a more accurate test.

“We should put this at the top of our list of priorities. It is the first time I have seen a report which indicates that one of our pieces of equipment is so seriously out of date that it will not do what we need it to do.” The medical superin-tendent-in-chief, Dr Ross Fairgray, said a new machine had been discussed about 18 months ago when the board agreed to subsidise a limited number of patients who had to go into the private sector. Every request to send a patient to the private sector when specialists were not satisfied with the results from the hospital machine had been approved. This had happened five times this

year, he said. "There is no argument about the necessity of the machine, it is a question of priorities and money.” A board member, Dr Jocelyn Hay, asked that the board look at developing magnetic resonance imaging, a new technology.

Dr Fairgray said that the cost of a magnetic imaging machine was about $5 million. The chairman of the committee, Mrs June Gardiner, said that before the board could consider buying a new breast X-ray machine it had to look at its resources.

The existing service where patients were sent to the private sector if necessary was adequate, she said. The committee decided to investigate possible sources of funding for the new X-ray machine.