Getting to the heart of Outback residents

Beside the Mobile CT Scanner at Bourke Hospital l-r: Western NSW Local Health District Senior Radiographer Ollie Mulcock, Professor Gemma Figtree from Sydney University and Royal North Shore Hospital, North Shore Cardiologist Dr Melissa Doohan, Siemens CT equipment specialist Georgie Smith, and Professor of Radiology at Sydney University and Radiologist at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Dr Stuart Grieve. Photo TWH

In an Australian first, valuable cardiac CT scans have been carried out by a visiting cardiology team in Bourke – from the back of a truck!

Cardiologists, Professor Gemma Figtree from Sydney University and Royal North Shore Hospital was in town last week with North Shore Hospital Cardiologist Dr Melissa Doohan to provide an outreach cardiology clinic in Bourke.

The two cardiologists were accompanied by Dr Stuart Grieve, a Professor of Radiology at Sydney University and Radiologist at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Western NSW Local Health District Senior Radiographer Ollie Mulcock, and Siemens CT equipment specialist Georgie Smith.

The trial was to see if the new CT equipment ‘in the back of a truck’ can be used to help diagnose and better treat people with heart disease and the risk of heart attack.

State-of-the-art medical CT scan equipment is in place in the vehicle which was provided by the state government to travel between Walgett, Bourke, and Cobar.

Read more in the printed edition of The Western Herald.

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