New diagnostic equipment at K.H.M.H.
Although there are several medical centres in Belize City that offer imaging services like ultrasound or CAT scans, patients admitted to the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital will now be able to get those tests done at the hospital instead of having to leave the compound. News Five’s Jacqueline Woods went to the K.H.M.H. to view the expanded Radiology Department.
Jacqueline Woods, Reporting
K.H.M.H. Chief Executive Officer Alvaro Rosado says the service will greatly enhance the quality of emergency care the hospital provides. Presently, a lot of precious time is lost when patients have to be ambulanced to and from a private imaging centre?a process that can last as long as an hour. Rosado believes they will be able to cut down that time to an impressive five minutes.
Alvaro Rosado, C.E.O., Karl Heusner Memorial
“Because from the emergency room, the patient will be wheeled immediately into the imaging area and our technicians are twenty-four hours, on site.?
The hospital?s new imaging services will not be accessible until the middle of July. A facility is now being prepared to accommodate the equipment, machines that include a computerized Tomography or CT scan, Echocardiogram, 3D Ultrasound, and Virtual Endoscopy. Rosado says it will probably cost around eight hundred thousand dollars for the equipment, installation, and the start up of operations. Funding, however, has already been approved through an eight month interest free loan from the Government of Belize.
Alvaro Rosado
?How are we going to pay back for it? It is not a free service. Nothing will change in terms of the cost to the client, except the quantum, the amount. Our prices will be about sixty-six percent of what the current price is. We have already worked out what we can do with that. And we are not out for a profit; we are out just to recover the cost that we spend. K.H.M.H. is never been out for a profit. We have never wanted to make a profit, because our thing is to provide service. So our prices will be about sixty-six percent of what it currently cost. The important thing to point out is that it is a fee for service.?
Only in special circumstances–like in a life and death situation?will the emergency service will be given free of cost.
Alvaro Rosado
?I see K.H.M.H. heading to its rightful spot, if you want to put it that way, in the health system. This is the flagship hospital of the country. It is a national referral hospital. Basically what that means is that we provide twenty-four hour services, year round and we have all the basic specialities and most of the sub specialities in the hospital. We did not have the equipment, the diagnostics equipment that was needed previously, and this is where we are heading now. This also provides for the hospital to get accreditation.?
K.H.M.H. twenty-four hour imaging service will have on staff two experienced radiologists. Jacqueline Woods for News Five.
Presently, Rosado says whenever a critical patient requires a CAT scan or other x-ray examination that they do not provide and the family cannot afford the service, the hospital refers that patient with an order from K.H.M.H. to an imaging centre of their choice and the hospital pays the bill.
