Samoa expecting US$1.5m CT Scanner next week

By Lagi Keresoma

APIA, SAMOA – 03 FEBRUARY 2022: If the weather permits and all goes well, Samoa will finally receive its US$1.5m Computerized Tomography (CT) scanner next week, on the 12 February.

The CT scanner is funded by the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) and was bought from a company in Shanghai, China.

Ninety per cent of the cost has already been paid in $3,554,268.40 tala and the balance will be paid once the its received, installed and fully operational.

According to the Minister Accident Compensation Corporation, Leatinu’u Wayne Sooialo told Parliament this week that the CT scanner left Shanghai on 15 December 2021 and arrived in Auckland, New Zealand on 27 January 2022.

It will leave Auckland on the Southern Moana container ship on 5 February and is expected to arrive in Samoa next Saturday, 12 February 2022.

Also on the ship are parts for the old CT scanner that will be repaired as standby.

Samoa has been without a CT scanner for almost 2 years and the Minister of Health, Valasi Tafito Selesele gave it first priority in the Government’s first week in office last August.

It is a vital piece of equipment for medical diagnosis as a computerized tomography (CT) scan combines a series of X-ray images taken from different angles around the human body and uses computer processing to create cross-sectional images (slices) of the bones, blood vessels and soft tissues inside the body. The CT scan images provide more-detailed information than plain X-rays do.

For two years Samoa has been without a CT scanner, the local patients were sent to American Samoa and New Zealand which was an additional cost to the Government and the health system.