The Right Honourable Lord Ashley of Stoke (front centre) officially opens the new unit at an event attended by Trust staff and volunteers, including Dr Geoffrey Robb (2nd left, back) Chairman of the Friends, and Charlotte Hamilton (3rd left, back), the Trust's Deputy Director of Operations.
3 March 2011
A new £200,000 x-ray room at Epsom Hospital was officially opened in front of a crowd of patients, visitors, staff, volunteers and VIPs recently.
The facility - which was generously funded by the hospital's League of Friends - houses a brand new specialist unit which can take up to 15 images per second to create a moving image of a patient's insides. It can be used to detect an incredibly wide range of conditions, including hernias, hip problems and kidney stones.
After a complete top-to-toe refurbishment, the new x-ray facility was formally opened by the Right Honourable Lord Ashley of Stoke - who is President of the Friends of Epsom and West Park Hospitals - and the first patients started to use the machine, called a 'digital fluoroscopic unit', last Monday (28 February 2011).
Dr Geoffrey Robb, Chairman of the Friends of Epsom and West Park Hospitals, with consultant radiologist Dr Kirsten Younger.
Matthew Hopkins is Chief Executive of the Trust. He said: "This is an extremely generous donation from the League of Friends. The unit is extremely versatile and it means patients can now have a wider range of tests at Epsom Hospital. Importantly, this saves them from having to travel further afield."
Catherine Pearce is a superintendent radiographer at the hospital. She said: "The unit can film patients standing up or lying down, depending on the type of test we are doing. For example, by asking patients to swallow Barium (a solution which coats the patient's organs and enables the radiologist to see them) standing up, we can film it in real time as it moves down their throat, and then by lying them down we can also detect problems such as hernias and 'reflux', a possible cause of heartburn."
The first patients to use the new 'fluoroscopic unit', which took seven weeks to install, were those with hip problems. Catherine added: "By injecting what's called a 'contrast dye' directly into the hip joint whilst the patient is being x-rayed, it shows us exactly where any problems are, and helps us to make sure they get the treatment they need as quickly as possible.
Staff and volunteers gather around the new unit.
"The tests take about half an hour to complete and we can actually see how the body is working, second-by-second."
It doesn't stop with the fluoroscopic unit, however. The room also contains a general x-ray machine, meaning it can also be used for examinations of the bones, respiratory (chest) and abdominal area.
At the official opening of the room, Dr Geoffrey Robb, the Chairman of the League of Friends of Epsom and West Park Hospitals, said: "We were absolutely delighted to fund this project - it is a fantastic piece of equipment and a very successful project. I'm very proud that the League of Friends were able to support the hospital in this way."
