A Batemans Bay GP and hospital emergency doctor is frustrated the town lacks its own CT scanner for rapid assessment of people suffering strokes, head and spinal injuries.
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Dr Andrew Gibson said a CT scanner would be the first step toward administering advanced stroke medications, currently unable to be safely used in the Eurobodalla.
CT scanners use computer technology to splice X-rays into cross sections, allowing more detailed diagnosis. While a private facility offers the scans in Moruya, Dr Gibson said medical personnel did not staff it and he regretted having to send his patients on “a 90-minute round trip”.
A scanner in Batemans Bay would mean “a patient could have a CT scan under medical supervision immediately”.
Advanced clot-busting medication, known as thrombolysis or RTPA, is available at 20 centres in NSW, but must be administered within about four hours of a stroke. A scan is essential to ensure the patient has not suffered a cerebral haemorrhage, as clot-busting drugs could cause fatal bleeding.
“RTPA is not available here,” Dr Gibson said.
“It should be given within four hours of the onset of symptoms. In Batemans Bay that is virtually impossible, because you have to send them half an hour down the road to have a CT scan, then half an hour back.
“There is not a CT facility readily and rapidly available for the people of Batemans Bay. There are other serious things, head injuries and fractured spines, where you need a CT scan. People presenting to Batemans Bay Hospital have to face a 30-minute trip down the road to an offsite facility where there are no doctors and then back again.”
Dr Gibson said the absence of a CT scanner was one reason “the best practice treatment for stroke is just not available here”.
With the right equipment, training and protocols in place, he said it might be possible to administer clot-busting drugs in the Eurobodalla, and reduce disability.
In the meantime, if a helicopter is available, Dr Gibson sends stroke patients to Canberra Hospital.
“If I find a person who has probably had a stroke, I don’t do a CT scan here, I try to get them to Canberra within four hours, which can be difficult, but I have done it,” he said.
“The best we can do for them here is hope there will be aircraft available so they can go to a centre where they can get a CT scan and thrombolysis.
“But if the helicopter is not available, then the people in Batemans Bay will not have that opportunity.”