2023-12-06 13:13:00
Almost a year after obtaining official authorization from the Regional Health Agency, the radiology examination device is being installed at the Limoux-Quillan hospital center. Still packed in the middle of the latest work, it will welcome its first patient on Tuesday, January 9.
For the inhabitants of Limouxin and even Pyrénées-Audoises, the arrival of the scanner represents real progress in terms of access to care. For local elected officials, the management of the Limoux-Quillan hospital center (CH) and medical professionals, this is the culmination of five years of particularly long administrative procedures. Maybe even more.
“When we started the process, in 2018, we had to submit an activity authorization request file to the establishment’s supervisory board and then to the Regional Health Agency (ARS). The Occitanie director of the ARS, Didier Jaffre, gave the green light in December 2022″underlines Jean Brizon, director of CH Limoux-Quillan.
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A processing delay which may have made some people think that the scanner would never arrive, despite regular declarations on this subject from Didier Jaffre and more particularly from Pierre Durand. The mayor of the City, also president of the Limouxin intercommunality and of the supervisory board, sought throughout 2023 to reassure the residents and medical staff of the area, even if it meant sometimes bringing forward the date of implementation of the ‘device. To the point that the subject had even been the subject of a Carnival theme.
The cutting edge of innovation
Monday December 4, however, the system is there. Still packed in boxes and plastic sheeting, it currently sits among workers who are busy finishing the premises of the new service which will be entirely dedicated to it. But he is there. “It’s mainly thanks to the involvement of Pierre Durand, who didn’t give up”insists Jean Brizon several times, during the visit to the site.
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This Canon Aquilion Serve scanner is, according to experts, “a jewel of technology”. Presented at the European Radiology Congress and the French Radiology Days, Limoux is one of the first cities in France to have this tool which guarantees “very high diagnostic image quality”, “very low exposure of patients to radiation”, “speed of image acquisition” et “low energy consumption”. The price of this cutting-edge equipment remains confidential to this day.
Trained staff
Among the bad tongues, some assured that although the scanner would be delivered, the service could not be operational due to a lack of competent staff. Here again, they were wrong: two medical electroradiology technicians were recruited on November 6. “They have since been trained in the different protocols”, specifies the director of the CH. A secretary entirely dedicated to the scanner service was also hired on December 4.
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According to CH estimates, 25 patients should pass through the 80 cm diameter tube every day, including appointments made in advance and unscheduled care. “These patients could just as easily be already hospitalized with us, but also come from outside, that is to say sent by their attending physician, explains Jean Brizon. The idea is to open this scanner to the outside world, to make it a tool available to health professionals.” Always with the aim of bringing technical care closer to rural areas, the main mission of a local hospital.
Appointment booking by telephone should begin on December 15. The first patient should arrive in a brand new department on Tuesday January 9. Until then, the hospital center must still make a “blank test” patient circuits and the information system, register with the Nuclear Safety Authority and go to the safety commission.
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