Patients at the Kingston Public Hospital (KPH) will no longer have to wait for up to 40 minutes for their X-rays to be processed as the Radiology Department last week received a new Kodak automatic film processor bought with money bequeathed to the department by a former employee who worked at the hospital for 60 years.

Edna Muad Little, who died in 1999, had spent four of her 60 years at the hospital as the chief radiographer.

Meta Bogle, executor of Little’s estate, said Little had given strict instructions for the Radiology Department to benefit from her estate.

So Bogle consulted with representatives of the hospital and it was decided that the department was in desperate need of a film processor.

Florette Skyers, the current chief radiographer at the hospital, explained that the old processor malfunctioned for more than two years, forcing the department to transport film to another processor within the hospital.

“Patients sometimes had to wait up to 40 minutes before they would get back their radiographs to take to the doctor,” Skyers told the Sunday Observer after the dedication and presentation of the new $2-million processor last Wednesday – November 8.

The presentation date was carefully chosen. For it was on November 8, 1895 that German physicist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen discovered X-rays.

“With this (the new film processor), now they are out of the department within 15 minutes,” Skyers said of the hospital’s patients. “Normally there would be a full waiting room, so now the turnover rate will be greater because more people will be processed quicker.”

More than 40 patients will benefit daily from the new film processor, the Sunday Observer was told.

On Wednesday, Little was hailed as a devoted and dedicated radiographer who always readily and willingly assisted and imparted her knowledge to her colleagues.