A new CT scanner at the Charlotte County Hospital (CCH) should be operational by the end of February.
The new state-of-the-art addition for the hospital in St. Stephen officially arrived on site late last week.
Steve Backman, president of the Charlotte County Hospital Foundation, said there is a lot of excitement.
“It was really cool seeing that big truck arrive with all this new equipment,” Backman said in an interview with our newsroom.
The CT scanner was expected to be operational last fall but Horizon Health said it was faced with unforeseen delays.
Backman said part of that was because they needed to reinforce the floor before installing the heavy piece of equipment.
“And of course, when they started construction in an old building, they run into a few more hiccups along the way that has to be corrected too,” he said.
Horizon Health said it waited to bring the CT scanner to the hospital until the renovations were completed in order to maximize the machine’s lifespan and warranty.
With the machine now on site, Backman said work is well underway to get it installed and ready for the first patients to use.
“The last time I was there, there was a whole crew of electricians pulling wires and in getting everything prepped for the installation,” he added.
The Charlotte County Hospital Foundation launched a $700,000 fundraising campaign for the new machine in October 2022.
Foundation officials expected it would take two or three years to hit that goal. Instead, it happened in just two months.
More than $262,000 was raised during the ninth annual Charlotte FM Radiothon in 2022. The Saint John Regional Hospital Foundation also donated $350,000 toward the initiative.
Backman said new CT scanner will bring tremendous benefits to the community by providing timely and local access to diagnostic imaging.
“A large number of patients travel to Saint John and sometimes multiple visits to get a CT scan, so you go up and you get a CT scan and then you go back as a follow-up,” he said.
“Now they can all have it done here, both regular CT, which is just the plain CT, but we also have the ability to contrast CT, which is an added benefit.”
In addition, Backman said having this equipment in Charlotte County will help to reduce waitlists for CT scans at the Saint John Regional Hospital.
