Mobile medical service helping rural communities for nearly ten years

Stuart Gowland of Mobile Medical Services spoke to infonews.co.nz at Field Days 2011 about how the service is adding value to rural medical services.

He says the service has become more effective in the ten years it has been operating and with improved technology the resource is set to grow further.

The service is now at a similar cost to run as the same services in traditional operation theatres he says.

A host nurse, driver and anesthetic technician travel with the mobile centre, and the rest of the staff and specialists come from the regional services for the day surgeries.

Technology is central to the service, where many specialists attend surgeries remotely via satellite communications.

In a five week cycle the mobile medical centre does more than 110 operations, and since starting out has done more than 13,000 surgeries averaging 1,700 operations per year.

Stuart Gowland of Mobile Medical Services speaking to infonews.co.nz

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIUI5F7lJwY