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No CT scanners for Brit field hospitals
The government has failed to provide military field hospitals deploying in the Gulf with a common type of specialised scanner, vital for treating head injuries, despite requests stretching back years, the Ministry of Defence's most senior radiologist claimed yesterday. Speaking under canvas in the radiology section of 33 Field Hospital, now treating military patients in the desert about one hour's drive from Kuwait City, Commander Peter Buxton, a Royal Navy officer, said the lack of a computer tomography (CT) scanner would hamper his work even without a war. Far cry from the old days of a battalion aid station. "We are the only western nation that deploys field hospitals of this size without a CT," he said, adding that requests to the MoD for the scanner had gone on for "several years". A CT scanner allows images to be taken inside the body of tissue which would not show up on x-rays, such as the brain. "I think it's regrettable we don't have a CT on site," Cmdr Buxton said. "It's particularly important for closed head injuries of the sort you would receive both in battle and in non-battle cases." Together with 500 back-up beds in civilian hospitals in Kuwait City, the military's medical preparations in the field are a sobering reminder of the scale of British casualties which could result from any invasion of Iraq. The hospital already has almost a hundred patients, mainly suffering from coughs, colds, pneumonia and asthma brought on by desert dust. Ninety-six servicemen and women have been sent home. CT scanners are available to British troops on a Royal Fleet Auxiliary ship, the Argus, and in civilian hospitals in Kuwait City. But with 33 Field Hospital expected to move forward to the rear of any British advance, that would mean moving casualties further. "We really shouldn't be taking potentially seriously ill patients any further than we have to," said Cmdr Buxton, who in peacetime works in an NHS hospital in Portsmouth. "We have transferred people down to Kuwait City. It is possible, and hopefully nobody will come to any harm out of this. But if we are to do things to a good standard, then we should be using CT on site." Colonel Kevin Griffin, the hospital commander, called it "the most capable hospital facility which has ever been deployed by the British army". He said CT scanners on the Argus, in Kuwait City, and at US military facilities would be there if British casualties needed them. "This is a coalition effort. If one of our patients has serious head injuries and requires CT imagery, he can go into US facilities. Likewise, if the US need some laboratory diagnostic facility, they can come here." I think there's less here than meets the eye, as US field hospitals will have them, and lots more. I'm just amazed, as a medical person myself, that one would take a CT scanner out into the field like this. I'm impressed. Posted by: Steve White 2003-03-11 |
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