The WA Government has awarded contracts worth $6.27 million for the supply and installation of a long-awaited MRI machine at a regional Western Australia hospital — a project that has suffered ongoing delays due to blasting at Kalgoorlie's Super Pit gold mine.
Bunbury, Albany and Geraldton are the only regional centres with magnetic resonance imaging machines, with residents in the Goldfields forced to travel nearly 1,200 kilometres on a round trip to Perth for scans.
But Health Minister Roger Cook today confirmed work would begin next month at Kalgoorlie Health Campus, more than two years since the Federal Government agreed to provide a Medicare-subsidised MRI licence.
The Deputy Premier has previously said the project faced delays because of seismic activity caused by daily blasting at the Super Pit gold mine.
The northern edge of the open pit mine is only four kilometres from the Kalgoorlie Health Campus, according to Google Earth.
"These are very complex projects," Mr Cook told the ABC.
"It's not a plug-in-and-play arrangement, and in Kalgoorlie it's made even more complex because of the artificial seismic activity — AKA mines blasting.
"We need complete seismic silence for an MRI machine to work, so there's been a lot of complex engineering work which has had to be done around this particular install.
"It's also going inside an operating hospital which adds further complications."
Kalgoorlie-based contractor ACorp Construction will build a new MRI suite at the hospital, while Siemens Healthcare will supply and install the machine.
Mr Cook said the 1.5T Magnetom Sola MRI machine could perform remote scanning of patients, allowing operators in Perth or other regional sites to connect to the machine and provide real-time technical support and training.
"This has been a long time coming," he said.
"I think it was [former WA Liberal leader and Kalgoorlie MLA] Matt Birney who originally raised this issue.
"It was promised by the last government in 2008 and we committed to it in the 2017 election, and today we're announcing a very important milestone."
Travel to Perth takes a toll
Mr Cook said almost 600 patients from the Goldfields accessed the Government's Patient-Assisted Travel Scheme last year for MRI services in Perth.
Among them was long-time Kalgoorlie resident, Fay Henderson, whose daughter Sharon collected more than 2,500 signatures on a petition for the MRI machine which was tabled in State Parliament in 2018.
Mrs Henderson has made five trips to Perth in recent years for serious medical conditions and needs another MRI scan in September before she can undergo a hip replacement.
The pensioner said the travel took a financial, physical and mental toll.
"It takes a huge toll, and not just on you but your family as well," she said.
"There's a lot of people worse off than me, but it would just be wonderful to have the MRI scan done and be back home in half a day, instead of three days out of your life in Perth or longer."
Her late husband John Henderson, who died, aged 54, in 1997, made countless trips to Perth for treatment for lymphoma and leukemia.
"He had eight MRIs in the last three years of his life and over that period it cost us about $38,000 to travel to Perth," she said.
"Luckily we were in a medical fund.
"In the end he had just had enough of travelling and while he didn't refuse to go, he hated it."
