Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Dr Deborah Powell: Apex National Secretary on the potential shortage of medical supplies

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Dr Deborah Powell: Apex National Secretary on the potential shortage of medical supplies · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Government's getting advice in a potential helium shortage. This is
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  Speaker 1: used in MRI machines. A quarter of the global supply
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: is imported from Cutter. Obviously that's affected by the Strait,
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  Speaker 1: but also the strike we told you about last week
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  Speaker 1: on the RUSS Lafann facility. That's where it all comes from.
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  Speaker 1: They're worried about cancer care. Here Doctor Debrah Powell, APEX
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  Speaker 1: Natal Secretary with us this morning. Deborah, good morning, good morning.
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  Speaker 1: How important is healing for MRI machines?
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely essential. It's the substance that calls these machines. They
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  Speaker 2: work at a very high temperature, so we have to
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  Speaker 2: call them to make sure that they can keep on operating.
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  Speaker 1: Do we have a shortage yet? Is there anything wrong
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  Speaker 1: with the MRI machines as we speak or is it
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  Speaker 1: we're just looking ahead and hoping it doesn't happen.
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  Speaker 2: I think we're just looking ahead. The MR machines have
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  Speaker 2: been maturing over the years. They used to take a
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  Speaker 2: lot of helium, about one and a half liters of
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  Speaker 2: liquid helium, but our current machines don't take that sort
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  Speaker 2: of level, and they also recycle their own helium, so
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  Speaker 2: we really only get into trouble. If we have to
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  Speaker 2: quench the machine is what we call it. I'd call
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  Speaker 2: it purging. But if something does go horribly wrong, then
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  Speaker 2: the helium is released into the atmosphere. It doesn't happen
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  Speaker 2: very often, but if it does, then they have to
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  Speaker 2: replace the helium in the machine. So that's really the
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  Speaker 2: main risk I think that we have here. Most of
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  Speaker 2: our machines these days are more modern, so they're not
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  Speaker 2: taking as much helium. We've got a very good replacement
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  Speaker 2: program at the moment for MRI machines, which is rather fortunate.
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  Speaker 2: So no, this is we need to watch and make
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  Speaker 2: sure that we have a little bit of spare capacity
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  Speaker 2: in the system in case that it's not going to
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  Speaker 2: affect cancer treatment or any of the other things that
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  Speaker 2: mrs do. At this point in time.
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  Speaker 1: How good you know. I was looking this morning at
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  Speaker 1: the numbers. We have about twenty per million people. Germany
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  Speaker 1: has about thirty five per million, the USD seven. Japan
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  Speaker 1: has sixty MRI machines per million. Does it make a
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  Speaker 1: big difference to cancer care? Does it make a big
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  Speaker 1: difference to survivability all that stuff?
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  Speaker 2: Oh? Absolutely, And it's not just cancer. These machines are
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  Speaker 2: used for a wide range of diagnosis and then monitoring
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  Speaker 2: of disease, cardiacs, neurological, all sorts of things. So yeah,
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  Speaker 2: it makes a big impact on how patients generally flow
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  Speaker 2: through the system. But cancer kere in terms of diagnosis,
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  Speaker 2: how far is the cancer spread, so we can actually
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  Speaker 2: get all of it's not just the main primary. All
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  Speaker 2: of these things mrs are absolutely critical to best treatment
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  Speaker 2: for our patients. They're fabulous machines, not.
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  Speaker 1: The debil pow APEX National Secretary.
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  Speaker 2: For more from earlier edition with Ryan Bridge.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Listen live to News Talks the b from five am weekdays,
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  Speaker 1: or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio