Cash drive can boost our hospital services

A CAMPAIGN to expand endoscopy services at Cairns Hospital will bring the facility one step closer to achieving full tertiary status.

The Far North Queensland Hospital Foundation has spearheaded the ambitious goal of raising $409,000 in six weeks to buy some key pieces of equipment for the diagnosis and treatment of small bowel, pancreas, bile duct, oesophagus, stomach and oesophagus ulcers, polyps and tumours.

Cairns Hospital director of medicine Dr Peter Boyd said the new equipment would make Cairns the second hospital in Queensland to provide the service.

“I’ve been working in endoscopy for 25 years and, I believe once we start this service, the demand will actually be four times what we think it is currently,” he said.

“The vision of the hospital is to get to a tertiary status service by service and we’re at the cusp of getting there.

“We’ve got the personnel. All we need is the equipment.”

Dr Boyd said the Cairns endoscopy unit currently performed 6000 procedures a year and a total of about 8500 across the whole Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Service.

“Every week we do 120 procedures, 23-30 everyday,” he said.

“We’re the only unit in Australia that I know that opens into the evening … we’ve also had to increasingly start working on weekends in order to meet the volumes.

“We believe that there’ll probably be several hundred people saved from travelling outside of Cairns with this new equipment.”

Foundation chairman Dr Ken Chapman said for a relatively small investment, the endoscopy team would be able to diagnose and treat more people locally, more quickly.

“Almost overnight this unit will be lifted to tertiary level, which we need to happen across the hospital,” he said.

“At the moment they can diagnose certain conditions but can’t treat it.

“But if we buy the equipment they’ll be able to. It means people don’t have to travel to Townsville or Brisbane or anywhere else to get their diagnosis and treatment.”

Dr Chapman called on the community to dig deep to help achieve the goal.

“We can do this and we can do this pretty quickly,” he said. Cairns Post.

Picture: STEWART McLEAN IN GOOD HANDS: Cairns Hospital registered nurse Carol Oakley and director of medicine Dr Peter Boyd with patient Fay Rutland in the endoscopic room before she undergoes a colonoscopy. The hospital aims to raise $409,000 for new equipment.