THE Hamilton Base Hospital has been able to purchase a $68,000 ultrasound with the help of $12,000 donated from their 2022 Christmas Appeal, $500 from Hamilton North Primary School’s Year 6 students and $53,000 from the Western District Health Service (WDHS) Op Shop.

Over 80 years, the WDHS Op Shop has contributed over $1 million to the hospital and WDHS.

The ultrasound was purchased for the Hamilton Base Hospital’s Emergency Department and it is a powerful screening tool that is used to diagnose trauma, abdominal pain, pregnancy related emergencies and other life-threatening conditions.

WDHS chief executive, Rohan Fitzgerald, said that each year the WDHS Op Shop raise roughly $100,000 to support goods purchases at WDHS and the Base Hospital.

“That has led us to being able to purchase this ultrasound, which comes at a cool cost of $68,000 but the contribution is made even more special when you think that the $53,000 is being contributed by ladies from the Op Shop,” he said.

“It is such a wonderful contribution that they make to our organisation as a result of their hard work and labour each day within the environment.

“From my perspective, we very much would like to thank the ladies for their hard work, their dedication to supporting WDHS, as it helps deliver services to our local community.

“It helps us provide state of art equipment to our staff who very much need these, the ultrasound in particular, to deliver the services that are required within an ED environment.

“I think the really important aspect of this purchase is that we get to diagnose people rapidly and then ensure that they get the appropriate treatment.”

 Emergency Department specialist, Jo Brown, said that it will help the department to assess patients particularly when there are limited resources elsewhere, such as radiology.

“It’ll help us to do much more rapid and at the bedside assessment of various illnesses and problems that might be affecting our patients,” she said.