A local private medical diagnostic facility has acquired a state-of-the-art 64-slice General Electric Multi-Detector Row Computed Tomography (MDCT) Scanner, described as the “gold standard” in x-ray imaging.

According to Dr Winston ‘Freddie’ Clarke, the managing director of X-ray and Diagnostic Ultrasound Consultants Limited, the US$1.2-million diagnostic machine was the only one of its kind in the English-speaking Caribbean. Only a few Latin American countries, he said, had the facility.

“Jamaica today has just about all the modern technology necessary for it to be regarded as a developed country as far as medicine is concerned.

“This technology (MDCT scanner) is not seen in Third World countries; this technology is really meant to be in the First World, and I believe that Jamaica, in terms of its preparations for Cricket World Cup 2007, is already fully equipped in terms of diagnostic technology and there is no other territory in the Caribbean which is as equipped technologically as our country is and that is something to really cheer about,” Dr Clarke told journalists at a press conference at his company’s Ripon Road office in Kingston yesterday.

Diagnostic Ultrasound Consultants Limited said the 64-slice scanner creates consistently good images of blood vessels, bones, organs and body tissues in comparatively short scan times and also allows very small structures and moving organs to be clearly visualised, rendering the technology superior to all other scanners in the island.