Gopeesingh hits Govt over CT scanners

He said the fact that the population is being served by a single CT scanner at Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex (EW MSC) in Mt Hope, highlights the Health Minister’s lack of management skills and lack of accountability to the population.

Gopeesingh was responding to reports that CT scanners at Port-of-Spain General Hospital, Sangre Grande Hospital and San Fernando General Hospital were non-functioning. Patients needing this service are being referred to the EW MSC. Gopeesingh said this would have a significant negative impact on patient care since CT scans are vital in diagnostic medical tests.

He said the breakdown has led to the denial of medical care for patients, some of whom have had to spend as much as $5,000 to receive service at private institutions. This despite the fact that the Couva Children’s Hospital is fully equipped with modern CT facilities which Government has refused to utilise.

Contacted for comment, chief executive officer at PoS General Sheldon Cyrus said one of the scanners went down last week Friday, but should be back up next week. He added that the second machine should be operational soon. CEO at San Fernando General Anil Gosine, said one of their scanners went down last week while another has been non-operational for over two months. He said they do not want new machines since the two can be repaired.

Gosine said the cost of one CT scanner is $4.2 million.

“The one that went down two and half months ago has a warranty on it, but it’s just that the supplier hasn’t fulfilled their obligation. By next weekend we should have one up,” Gosine said.

Sangre Grande CEO Dr Rameshwar Maharaj said the scanner, “has not provided any appreciable level of service since November.” He said that despite multiple attempts of field service engineers to resolve various issues, there have been continued performance failures of the unit with scanner age being cited as the major contributing factor to downtime.

Maharaj said an average of five patients are referred to the EW MSC daily to access CT scans.