State-of-the-art equipment at Castelnaudary hospital

It is a brand new ultrasound machine that has been in the Imaging department of Castelnaudary hospital since the end of May. And to speak about it, who better than a radiologist brought to use this equipment: “It is a state-of-the-art device, at the top, which allows us to carry out all the medical exploration, which was a little lacking here. new probes, we will be able to perform breast punctures “, enthuses Dr Bergès, greeting” a team, a dynamic city where we come with pleasure “, to the delight of the mayor of Castelnaudary, Patrick Maugard .

A reinforced service

The practitioner has been working here since 2020, like 17 of his private radiologist colleagues from the Dôme center in Carcassonne, with several contract hospital practitioners from the hospital center including Dr Sabra, and other specialists from the Carcassonne hospital center.

Dr Bergès points to “an important recruitment all around Castelnaudary to Revel, Pamiers, Villefranche-de-Lauragais Toulouse because the appointments are too, too long”. He continues: “We are lucky to have a scanner here, an emergency service that works well. All the conditions for it to work. It is also important to have radiologists on site, a reinforced team because, for mammography as for ultrasounds, it is imperative to have a radiologist. We cannot do remote radiology for these acts “, specifies Denis Burban, deputy director, stressing that a radiologist is present every day at the hospital center. chaurien. “In case of absence, we switch to remote radiology, but it will be increasingly rare”. “This makes it possible to envisage a development of the imaging activity and to guarantee local access for the population of the territory to important examinations”, notes, in turn, Claire Garcia, deputy director, who notes that the workforce has increased – radio manipulators and medical secretaries – to best respond to the increase in activity of this service.

The figures speak for themselves: 350 ultrasounds per month, more than 1,100 radiology procedures per month, around 600 CT scans per month, for a total of around 20,000 procedures per year in 2020. For the mammography machine alone , – a recent acquisition too – “which is going extremely well, we were around 500 mammogram procedures in 2017 – 2,018,550 in 2019. There, we will almost reach 1000, or even exceed them”, indicates Mr. Burban . “We currently have appointments at three weeks to one month, and even emergency appointments in the event of acute breast pathology. We respond quickly. Toulouse is three months late,” said Claire Garcia. “It’s a real plus. It’s already very complicated to have radiologists on site who, moreover, perform mammograms, it’s even rarer because it’s a particular specialty, but there are several. in Dr Bergès’ team, ”she observes. “We are doing as good examinations here as in Toulouse or at the cancer center, with people trained there who have joined us and who come here with pleasure,” notes the latter. “Castelnaudary is at the crossroads of many places. People are positive. As soon as we propose new practitioners, they are takers. We see that things are moving. There are perspectives, a scanner, in a few years we will be able to ask for an MRI, there are all the assets for. If there is indeed a city in all of Occitania where an MRI is needed, it is here “, continues Dr Bergès.

The hope of an MRI

There remain emergencies, the redevelopment of which was planned. “Following the Covid, we had to change our architectural approach since this requires us to have a totally different flow management”, underlines Mr. Burban. In our projects, we will enter another dimension where emergencies will gain in surface area, medicine in terms of comfort. This will allow radiology to gain quite a bit of space and we are planning a space for the MRI if we ever get it. To have a unit for outpatient consultations with a large radiology platform and all the advanced consultations that we are developing all around. ”This is the case, for example, in rheumatology, with a professor from Toulouse who is going come, in September, to do vacations here, in conjunction with doctors Monod and Hacène de Castelnaudary. “We note all the dynamics of the hospital center in all that is public-private collaboration, to offer nearby access to the care offer. We find it in radiology, in the vaccination center, it is really a mark of identity of the hospital center because all together, we are stronger “, concludes Claire Garcia, while Dr Bergès emphasizes the perfect harmony with the management of the establishment.