Advanced equipment to boost services at Mpilo

MEMBERS of the public will enjoy improved access to affordable magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) services at Mpilo Central Hospital following the procuring of new advanced equipment to boost quality healthcare for public institutions.

MRI is a non-invasive medical imaging test that produces detailed images of almost every internal structure in the human body, including the organs, bones, muscles and blood vessels.

MRI scanners create images of the body using a large magnet and radio waves. So far, the service was only accessible from private players leaving members of the public without access as a single scan can cost at least US$600.

Cancer patients will benefit more from the new equipment at Mpilo, which now awaits commissioning.

Improving healthcare in all its facets for the benefit of people ranks among the Government's top priorities, which has the desire to improve primary, secondary, tertiary, quaternary and quinary care for the benefit of its citizens in line with Vision 2030.

In a recent interview, Mpilo chief medical officer, Dr Narcisius Dzvanga said he was happy that patients would now have access to a cheaper MRI service as they had suffered for years in the hands of private players.

He said although the scan is generally expensive, he was confident that the Ministry of Health and Child Care is going to put a cap to ensure members of the public can afford the service.

"Our state-of-the-art MRI is an advanced CT scan although the physics is slightly different. This will be the first kind of scan to be owned by the Government as Mater Dei has its Diagnostic Centre and the other one is owned by Bulawayo," said Dzvanga.

"In the last email I received last weekend those in charge indicated that they will be training our radiographers from the 4th to the 11th of January and they have sent those websites to start looking at the key elements of the MRI," he added.

"By mid-January, once our staff is trained, we will be good to go. It's supposed to be expensive, but we know our parent ministry is going to put a cap on how much we can charge so that everyone who needs it can have easy access."

Dr Dzvanga said the cancer patients will be the biggest beneficiaries as they constantly need these scans as part of treatment and other specialties will benefit a great deal from this development by the Government.

Mpilo is a 1 000-bed hospital, the second biggest in Zimbabwe and it services the southern region, which includes Bulawayo, Masvingo, Midlands, Matabeleland North and South provinces.