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What is the Wessex Scanner Appeal?

Asks Millennium Contributor Juleigh Martin

A number of people have written in asking what is the Wessex Scanner Appeal? It all started in the late 1970's just after Southampton General Hospital brought its first scanner. These high tech machines are expensive to purchase and maintain, costing anywhere between £3,000 for simple partial-body scanners and £500,000 for the full monty.

Thanks to the efforts of thousands of people who have contributed in the endless fundraising that took place all over the South of England, Southampton General Hospital (SGH) now has two scanners. In addition in Wessex Region there are scanners at…

In fact, there are scanners in most National Health Service hospitals throughout the UK. Today there are two types of scanner in common use…

The scanners take 45 seconds to scan the whole head, which is a dramatic improvement over the first scanners, which took 7 minutes because they had to scan the whole body. The scanners can pick up many medical conditions. The type of scanner used depends on the nature of the possible medical problem. CT is used for the head and the MRI scanner is used the rest of the body.

Although the Scanner Appeal is no longer officially running, all donations are still very welcome and the money goes towards either a CT or a MRI scanner.


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