"Radiology"

During a period of about a week my 90yr old mother was forced to attend a Radiology practice on 3 separate occasions as the radiologist was not allowed to perform more than one examination on a day. In order to have an MRI, a CT scan and an ultra sound she had to attend on 3 seperate occasions. The first procedure showed a cyst which she perceived as a tumour or cancer as no one seemed to explain the result to her adequately.

She was attempting to be independent and cope alone without telling or bothering her family so drove herself for the appointments. The weather at the time was exceptionally hot and she uses oxygen for her breathlessness which always becomes worse with stress. Staff at the radiology practice assisted her to her car and were concerned about her condition and tried to discourage her from driving herself home but she insisted and fortunately got home safely (the radiology staff even phoned to check that she got home safely – congratulation to those caring people for this small gesture of care). My mother ended up being admitted to hospital by ambulance 2 days later as she was still so stressed and extremely breathless.

My son and sister have also had similar problems having to return on multiple occasions for radiological examinations due to this restriction of not allowing more than one procedure per day. I am concerned that this rule could be creating great inconvenience and excessive cost to the community. It is hard to imagine the reason – maybe to stop the Doctor over prescribing examinations? – if so it does not seem to be working and only appears to be causing much inconvenience and cost to individual patients who have to take extra time off work and make additional trips for the procedures.