Portable scanner boost for patients

Dr Keith Harrison and clinical midwife manager Roisin van Onselen show trust chairman Kevyn Moore how the portable scanner operates. Photo/Warren Buckland

A decade after he died, the devotion of paediatrician Dr Oliver Smales to care for children and to assist Hawke's Bay Hospital lives on.

Through the Oliver Smales Memorial Trust, which was set up in 2005, a year after Dr Smales died at the age of 60, nearly half the funding has been provided for a portable ultrasound scanner.

The trust presented Hawke's Bay District Health Board with $35,000 to go toward the $77,000 scanner, with the rest being topped up through the Countdown Kids Hospital Appeal programme.

The scanner is now in use.

Trust chairman Kevyn Moore said: "It was a project we had been working on for quite a long time. We knew there was a real need for this item." Pre-natal care, monitoring and assessment within the district health board's maternity services is provided by midwives and specialist obstetric physicians at various locations across the region, which stretches from Mahia in the north to Waipukurau in the south, and even takes in the Chatham Islands.

While ultrasound technology is used extensively in maternity services, until now it had not been available to doctors and midwives who make visits to outlying areas.

Mr Moore said the availability of the portable scanner now allowed doctors to carry out quick checks of the baby's wellbeing without requiring the woman to attend the hospital's radiology department.

"This frees up the doctor and makes time-consuming travel for the family unnecessary."

Maternity staff said ultrasound scanning was becoming increasingly important for full assessment of a known or suspected pregnancy problem, prior to hospital admission.

Hawke's Bay District Health Board clinical midwife manager Roisin Van Onselen said Maternity and Gynaecology Services were grateful for the donation of the portable ultrasound scanner.

"Ultrasound services in rural hospitals such as Wairoa and the Chatham Islands are limited, and the Voluson-e ultrasound machine can be packed up into a small suitcase and taken along for obstetric and gynaecology specialist clinics in these areas," she said.

"The scanner is used daily in the antenatal clinic, allowing doctors to do quick checks of a baby's wellbeing without requiring the woman to attend the radiology department for a full ultrasound scan, and this frees up this valuable resource for other patients in the hospital requiring ultrasound scans."

Mr Moore said the main objects of the trust were to help with the education and training of therapists and nursing staff working with children, as well as assist through the provision of equipment and the development of procedures and protocols.

It had so far come forward with more than $100,000 in funding. The latest donation was the result of income from investments, as well as assistance from the Joan Fernie Charitable Trust and the Infinity Foundation.