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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 6 Hansard (22 June) . . Page.. 1749 ..
Most of the aforementioned services are provided from facilities within The Canberra Hospital. There are, however, Pathology and Medical Imaging that are provided as satellite services of TCH that are physically located in TNCPH. These services are an extension of those physically provided within TCH, they are not owned by TNCPH.
To enable services to be provided competitively, it was necessary to purchase some additional equipment. The costs of which have been included in the negotiated price over the contract period. Purchases of equipment have been made in areas such as Food Services, Pathology, Pharmacy and Medical Imaging.
There have been advantages in having additional equipment for the public facility, and particularly in the case of medical imaging;
� It has been possible to undertake additional public patient throughput especially in the ambulatory outpatient setting. The waiting lists for CT examinations have reduced from four (4) weeks to nil waiting.
� Purchase of new equipment has assisted with the upskilling of TCH staff to new levels of technology.
� When any of the TCH equipment is down (eg routine maintenance and breakdowns) it has also been possible to access the satellite equipment to continue to provide public patient services on this campus where previously these patients may have been referred to other service providers. For example the TCH satellite equipment can now be accessed on the one day per month when medical imaging equipment in TCH is unavailable due to regular maintenance.
In the Medical Imaging and Pathology areas specific equipment purchased was:
� Medical Imaging - A package of items were bought from Toshiba, comprising a CT Scanner, general x-ray unit, mobile unit and ultrasound at a price of $843,500.
Further items were purchased from AGFA, comprising a processor and laser. Included as part of this package were the cassettes, an ID camera and chemical mixer. The total price was $139,215.
� Pathology - A number of items was purchased including a blood refrigerator, cryostat for frozen sections, microscope for frozen sections, blood gas analyser and blood collection chair and trolley. This was for a total price of $91,700.
(3) The equipment for both Medical Imaging and Pathology were purchased from
equipment funding which is provided annually by the Department.
TCH is continuing to explore avenues for financing of the Medical Imaging equipment. Should financing be arranged, repayments will be scheduled for the same period (5 years) as the contract between TCH and the NCPH.
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