Ministers visit St George Hospital to announce Medicare-eligible MRI license

St George Hospital hosted The Hon. Greg Hunt MP, Federal Minister for Health and David Coleman MP, Federal Member for Banks, for a tour of its Radiology Department on Thursday 31 January 2019. 

 

The tour was hosted by Michael Still, Board Chair, SESLHD, Dr Derek Glenn, Clinical Director of Radiology, St George Hospital and Vicki Manning, Director of Nursing and Midwifery Services, St George Hospital.

 

Guests viewed medical imaging facilities, including an MRI machine. Together, the Ministers announced that from 1 March 2019, MRI services at St George Hospital will be bulk billed to all patients in the region.

 

An MRI machine, which gives a detailed view of the soft tissues of the body, such as muscles, ligaments, brain tissue, discs and blood vessels, is used to diagnose and monitor medical conditions including cancer, stroke and heart problems. 

Dr Glenn said the license will extend the hours of the MRI’s operation and benefit patients throughout the district.

 

“When we have a full license it will allow us to have the revenue base to have longer hours and serve outpatients rather than just having the instrument completely devoted to in-patient services,” Dr Glenn said.

 

“This is the only public MRI in the local area. As a public hospital we have a very busy Emergency Department – up to 80,000 patients a year. A lot of those patients are coming through to diagnostics. So this will get them through the system in a timely way.”

 

Dr Ryan Snaith, Emergency Department Staff Specialist, St George Hospital, also joined the press conference to discuss how the Emergency Department has  utilised information from My Health Record to benefit both patients and staff.