Replacing an aged piece of mobile X-ray equipment should be signed off by the Whanganui District Health Board at its meeting later this month.
Funding to update the equipment was included in the board's 2008-09 budget with a limit set at $200,000.
The recommendation comes from the board's hospital advisory committee (HAC),
which met on Friday.
Called an image intensifier, the machine is predominantly used in the operating theatres. It is often used in orthopaedic operations where alignment of bones, positions of screws and titanium rods and accurate location of joints is critical.
It is also called into play by the intensive care unit for inserting pacemakers and during surgical cases to show the position of scopes or dyes.
The machine will show up images immediately on a monitor. The hospital has had two image intensifiers but the oldest one - manufactured in 1984 - has been taken out of service. The remaining unit is 12 years old and needs costly repairs to bring it up to an acceptable operational level.
The hospital's radiology department has been maintaining two image intensifiers - the first manufactured in 1984 and the later one built in 1996, The later model was the "workhorse" with the older unit kept as a back up. But given the age of the older unit it has been taken out of service.
Three replacement image intensifiers are being evaluated, ranging in price from $117,000 to $135,000.
Byron Scientific carried out tests on the current unit, and in its report it said not having two intensifiers "poses huge clinical risk" for the hospital.
It said two units were needed, with one as a reliable back-up when the other machine is being serviced or if a fault occurs. There were also times when two operating theatres needed the units at the same time.
