Hospital buys new CAT scan

The purchase of a new generation of CAT scanner means Islanders will no longer have to travel out of province for cardiac testing.

The new scanner both eliminates the trip, and replaces a risky diagnostic test cardiac catheterization with a CAT scan.

"Of course if we do find the disease, you'd still have to go to Saint John or Halifax and have the ballooning done," says Calvin Joudrie, head of diagnostic imaging at the Queen Elizabeth hospital."

"But it can do the first stages which actually prevents unncessary trips off Island. And the risk of that procedure, the cardiac catheterization, is quite high. While the CT, there's no risk at all."

The hospital foundation has so far raised $700,000 towards the $1.7 million dollar price tag. That includes the purchase of five new ultrasound machines.

The Prince County Hospital also has an advanced version of the CAT scan, though not quite as state-of-the-art as the QEH model. Joudrie says the two CAT scanners put P.E.I. on the leading edge of technology across Canada.

"It's going from having some of the worst equipment to some of the best equipment," he says.

The QEH is the first medical institution in Canada to purchase this new generation of scanner.

The new machine should be up and running at the QEH by April or May 2005.