THE efficiency of the X-ray system at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) has been boosted significantly with the addition of three new X-ray machines at a cost of $113 million.

These machines are expected to take the department’s operations fully digital.

Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony, during the commissioning ceremony, on Saturday, noted that the new pieces of equipment will be used to replace the antiquated methods of x-ray systems previously employed at the hospital, which significantly affected the department’s ability to provide time-efficient service to the public.

The three new Siemens machines, which were procured from BioMedical Enterprise of Trinidad and Tobago, are two fixed ceiling-mounted Multi Fusion Max totalling US$419,420 and one portable Mobilett Elara Max that costs US$102,900.

The new X-ray machines are completely digital and eliminate the need for X-ray films which were previously used by the hospital and proved to be time-consuming.

The systems are linked to all wards and clinics in addition to the hospital’s Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS) which is a medical imaging technology used primarily in healthcare organisations to securely store and digitally transmit electronic images and clinically-relevant reports.

According to Minister Anthony, this means there will be faster efficiency for patient information to be transferred from the X-ray department to the requisite doctor. He noted that the new system also allows for a wider range of medical expertise when needed.

He added that this comes particularly useful given the collaboration of the hospital with the Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) RAD-AID, an organiation that works to improve and optimize access to medical imaging and radiology in low-resource regions of the world.

“So, basically, if you get an image at New Amsterdam [Hospital], you’d upload that to the Cloud, pull it down back here [GPHC] and you could read it here and then send the report to the doctors at New Amsterdam.

“And the collaboration that we have with RAD-AID, if we need specialist advice, they can also give us that type of advice and they could take that off the Cloud or anywhere else in the world and give us that report; that’s not fiction, that’s what is happening right now,” Minister Anthony explained.

Chief Executive Officer (ag.) Robbie Rambarran expressed his elation at the new equipment. He noted that the previous X-ray machines were outdated, making it difficult for the hospital to cater to the growing needs of patients.

It was disclosed that the new equipment can process 300 plus x-rays within 24 hours while the hospital’s previous systems, which were installed in 2015, were capable of processing just over 90 a day.