THE Bathurst Health Services Action Group has welcomed the announcement of a MRI service for the local public hospital, but it holds concerns over what impact it might have on other services.
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Member for Bathurst Paul Toole last week announced that the NSW Government would be providing about $4 million in funding to Bathurst Health Service to obtain MRI equipment.
It will take at least 18 months for the service to become available and the government hasn't provided any funding for staffing costs.
The action group, which includes unnamed health professionals that work at the hospital, last year penned an open letter to Mr Toole listing the shortfalls they had identified.
The list included the need for an MRI machine.
Naturally, the action group was pleased to hear that Bathurst Health Service now has the money to get one, but spokesperson Warren Aubin is looking at the news with some caution.
"The MRI was one thing on the needs list of the action group and it's nice to see its been bought into play at Bathurst," he said.
"But the only thing we have trepidation about is where is it going to go? There's really no room for a MRI at this hospital."
He said one of the group's fears was that, as the MRI service requires a lot of space, that other services may be sacrificed to make room.
"It's a little bit dubious at the moment, not sure where or when, but it's nice that [a MRI machine] on the books," Mr Aubin.
The Western Advocate put a similar question to the hospital's general manager, Cathy Marshall, at the press conference for the announcement, and she indicated that would not occur.
"The MRI machine was part of our clinical services plan, which also sees into the future that we'll require more beds," she said.
"We had Health Infrastructure here last week looking at our footprint in view of working with architects to look at the future needs and services of Bathurst and that master plan will come up with options for us going forward and we hope that plan will be completed by December."
The other concern Mr Aubin has is about licencing.
With a federal licence, imaging would be subsidised by Medicare, but without it patients would face a significant cost.
Mr Toole was asked about the licence last week and said the work was under way to ensure the application could go to Federal Government "in the coming months".
"We will be asking them to provide a licence for the MRI machine, because we need a licence to make sure that those costs are going to be kept at a minimum here for the community," he said.