A new MRI machine has lifted the roof at Taranaki Base Hospital.
The state-of-the-art machine, used to produce detailed images of the inside of the body, weighed in at a whopping four tonnes and was too big to bring through the doors of the hospital and up on to the second floor.
So instead of knocking a hole in the wall to get it through, contractors took the roof off, craned it in, before they put the roof back on.
If that was not enough, contractors also had to strengthen the floor with extra steel and concrete as well as instal new ceiling beams to protect the floors below.
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All in the middle of winter.
Te Whatu Ora Taranaki project manager Heather MacKenzie said a new MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) machine was needed because hospital’s previous one had become unserviceable after more than 20 years’ use.
The new MRI machine is on lease until a permanent replacement is bought, along with a new CT scanner, when the east wing building is completed in late 2024.
The scale of the work needed to get the machine in meant some services, like cardiology, were temporarily relocated.
“Everyone involved with this major piece of work, which took six weeks, responded so well, it made the job so much easier to get done,” MacKenzie said.
Patients needing an MRI scan during that six weeks were transferred to other radiology services in the region,” she said.
Te Whatu Ora Taranaki head of radiology Dr Ryan Walkin admitted the six weeks were a difficult time, but everyone realised it was for a long-term benefit.
“So it was a matter of putting in alternative patient pathways and being flexible about work spaces and so on until the job was done,” he said.
“We have gone from having the oldest MRI scanner in the country by quite some way to one of the newest, so we are pretty excited about getting it commissioned and having the training so we can use it to its full potential.”
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