«Helping users who are on the waiting list, developing research in the region and contributing to retaining new professionals who would like to stay in the Algarve, but currently do not have that possibility» are, in the words of Helena Guerreiro, some of the added value of the new magnetic resonance equipment installed in the Imaging Lab by ABC, in Loulé, officially opened last Friday, September 27th.
The young doctor from Loulé is, in fact, proof that this investment is already helping to attract qualified professionals to the region.
She herself decided to leave Hamburg, Germany, where she led a research team, to embrace this project launched by Algarve Biomedical Center (ABC), in partnership with the Municipality of Loulé, and which also involves the Algarve Local Health Unit (ULSAlg) and the University of Algarve.
“For me, it is very gratifying to be able to return to the Algarve and embrace this project that I believe has enormous added value for the region”, says the doctor.
In an interview with Sul Informação, Helena Guerreiro explains that, although the equipment is in temporary facilities, in containers next to the Joaquim Vairinhos Municipal Pavilion, all the conditions are in place to begin responding to the population.
This is the third magnetic resonance imaging equipment in the Algarve, with advanced technology that will allow diagnosing and monitoring users of the National Health Service in the neurological, musculoskeletal, abdominal, genitourinary, breast/senology, oncology, cardiovascular or pediatric areas.
The machine also allows for full-body magnetic resonance imaging, which, until now, was not possible to perform on any of the machines in the Algarve, forcing patients to travel to Lisbon.
But how can patients access the Imaging Lab? For now, only by hospital recommendation. Open from 8:00 am to 20:00 pm, Monday to Friday, the Imaging Lab will work on three pillars.
“The first is this connection with the Hospital, since we will receive patients who are part of research lines established in accordance with the rules. The hospital makes a scheduling request, we schedule it here at the MRI and then we call the patients to be examined here with us. From the moment the images are taken, they are available to the hospital, as are the reports”, explains Helena Guerreiro.
The second pillar is prospective studies, which, according to the doctor, “generally require funding and therefore a proposal needs to be made, which has to be approved by the Ethics Committee”. Once approved, it will be possible to study healthy patients or users in whom a variable is to be tested.
Furthermore, the Imaging Lab will dedicate itself to the technological development of imaging and magnetic resonance imaging itself.
“In other words, we will develop new tools here to quantify, visualize and map some structures. Basically, these are three pillars linked to research, but with different scopes”, concludes Helena Guerreiro.
For Vitor Aleixo, Mayor of Loulé, this is “another pillar in the grand project that is already, and will increasingly be, a complex ecosystem of innovation and scientific research to support biomedicine”, which is being built in this city, with the already inaugurated Surgical Simulation and Training Center, the first Medical Genetics Laboratory in the Algarve, which will be opened soon, and the first University Health Center the country.
As Jorge Brito, director of the Radiology Service at the Hospital de Faro, «Loulé is on the map to change the health landscape in the Algarve».
In the words of Vitor Aleixo, all these investments are “a clear political choice by this executive who understands that the economy of our region cannot continue to be limited to a single activity, which is tourism and real estate activity combined with tourism”.
“The investment in Science that we are making in the Algarve, and particularly in Loulé, is in fact the great future that lies ahead for our region”, stated the mayor of Loulé.
Questioned by Sul Informação Regarding the conditions of the current location of the equipment, Pedro Castelo Branco, president of ABC, admits that they are not ideal, but stresses that the essential thing is to start responding to the population.
«We have around 3 people waiting for MRI scans for the spine and head alone. We are going to start reducing the waiting lists now, following the lines of research that were previously established, so it would not make sense to wait another two or three years with cutting-edge equipment that was not working».
Regarding being in Loulé, and not inside the Hospital de Faro, for example, Pedro Castelo Branco states that, «contrary to popular belief, most people who need magnetic resonance imaging are not hospitalized» and «Loulé ends up being a central city, both for those coming from Portimão and those coming from Vila Real de Santo António».
The idea is that, in the coming years, both the Imaging Lab, such as the Surgical Simulation and Training Center, the Algarve Medical Genetics Laboratory and other facilities migrate for the Mariano Gago Building, the future “mother house” of ABC, which will be built next to the Loulé Municipal Stadium.
This will be a building dedicated exclusively to research, located in an area of 4200 square meters, whose public tender for the project will be launched at the end of the first quarter of 2025, as announced by the Mayor of Loulé at the inauguration ceremony. Imaging Lab.
The Imaging Lab was born from the cooperation between ABC and the Municipality of Loulé, with the support of European funds from CRESC Algarve 2020.
Photos: Mariana Sedge | Sul Informação
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