Beja is no longer the only district in the country without magnetic resonance imaging

The inauguration ceremony of the new equipment, chaired by the Secretary of State for Health, Ricardo Mestre, was held at the end of the morning, in the hospital’s Imaging Service, in the Magnetic Resonance Building.

On the sidelines of the inauguration, the government official highlighted to the Lusa agency the importance of making this equipment available at the José Joaquim Fernandes Hospital, integrated into the Baixo Alentejo Local Health Unit (ULSBA).

“The Beja region was the only one in the country that did not yet have this service available to the population and, therefore, from the outset, it fills a need that existed in this district, which is now covered with this service”, highlighted Ricardo Mestre.

According to the Secretary of State, without MRI in this area, “around 5,000 people, every year, had to travel from this region to Lisbon or other regions of the country to undergo these exams”.

“Now, they will be able to do them here”, he highlighted, corroborated by the president of the ULSBA board of directors, José Carlos Queimado, who told Lusa that users in the district, until now, “didn’t even have a private or agreed alternative” to carry out this type of exams in the region.

“It was the only district in the country that did not have equipment like this, neither in the public nor private and agreed sectors. We will now be able to start reversing this situation and, therefore, it is a very good day for us”, congratulated the head of ULSBA.

José Carlos Queimado explained that the equipment, whose investment was subsidized at 85% by the Alentejo 2020 Regional Operational Program, is already in operation, but, for now, in the testing and optimization phase.

“As soon as everything is stabilized”, the scheduling of exams for users will begin, said the president of ULSBA, adding that, “probably”, this could “start next week”.

“We have doctors for all types of exams that we are going to carry out and our technicians have received training in magnetic resonance imaging since September last year at the Hospital de S. José, in Lisbon, and, 15 days ago, at the hospital in Portalegre, which has equipment similar to ours”, he explained.

According to the ULS of Baixo Alentejo, this feature was “long needed” and will also provide “a technological differentiation that will allow the institution to recover the training suitability in the specialty of Imaging”, lost around 15 years ago.

“It was equipment that an Imaging Service in a hospital with this profile must have and the fact that it was not available in due time was one of the factors that contributed, around 10 or 15 years ago, to the loss of training suitability. of the service, which was recognized at national level”, argued José Carlos Queimado.

The president of ULSBA added that, now that magnetic resonance imaging is available, “it does not mean” that the hospital will soon return to “training suitability” in this area, “because there are other aspects to take into account, but this is a point -key to the ambition that, in the medium term, the service will once again be recognized” and can once again train doctors in this specialty.