South West Hospital and Health Service’s first cardiac radiology service arrives at Roma Hospital

Maranoa residents will no longer have to travel more than four hours for cardiac CT scans as a brand new cardiac radiology service has arrived at Roma Hospital.

The South West Hospital and Health Service’s first ever cardiac radiology service has been established at Roma Hospital with the introduction of cardiac CT scans.

Previously, southwest Queensland residents had to travel to Toowoomba, Brisbane or elsewhere for the scans.

Now this new service allows residents to have cardiac CT scans closer to home.

The cardiac radiology service started back in April this year and is building momentum, with more than 90 scans done to date.

The new service, which is being delivered as part of an agreement between SWHHS and Alpenglow Australia and Qscan Group, is expected to undertake about 18-20 scans a month at Roma Hospital.

SWHHS Medical Services acting director Dr Michael McLaughlin said the new service offers both convenience to local residents and helps southwest hospitals grow as they continue to secure better health facilities.

“As you can well imagine this is an amazing service for our rural communities and one of its kind in Australia,” Dr McLaughlin said.

“I would like to thank Qscan Group and Alpenglow Australia for working with us to bring this vital service to Roma.

South West Hospital and Health Service acting director of Medical Services Dr Michael McLaughlin.

“We have already had patients from right across the southwest taking advantage of our new Roma service.

“We expect demand to grow as GPs in the southwest learn about the service and start referring more patients to Roma, rather than outside the region.

“We know coronary heart disease is usually the underlying cause of a heart attack, which is Australia’s number one cause of death.

“One Australian has a heart attack or stroke every four minutes and 1.4 million Australians have a high chance of having a heart attack or stroke in the next five years. But many are unaware of this risk.

“So anything that can be done to improve heart health or allow earlier diagnosis of heart

conditions, such as our new cardiac radiology service, will have immense benefits for

individuals and their families.”

Dr McLaughlin said they’ve been overwhelmed with positive feedback from patients.

“One patient had been scheduled for their scan on the Gold Coast,” he said.

“But travelling away for scans can be expensive and time-consuming when you have

responsibilities at home.

“As a result, they had thought about cancelling that appointment and were quite distraught about this.

“They were very grateful to be able to have their scan in Roma rather than the Gold Coast.”

Originally published as South West Hospital and Health Service’s first cardiac radiology service arrives at Roma Hospital