\n Hundreds of patients have had their appointments cancelled on the hottest day of the year so far\u00a0when\u00a0the machines\u2019 cooling systems failed.\n<\/p>\n
\n Staff at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital (N&N) are frantically trying to find a \u201ccooling resolution\u201d but cannot say when the problem will be fixed.\n<\/p>\n
\n Already 254 outpatient appointments have been cancelled.\n<\/p>\n
\n More than 250 outpatient appointments have been cancelled. (Image: Newsquest)\n<\/p>\n
\n The county is in the grip of a heatwave which has led to the hottest June days ever and a rare red heat-health alert is\u00a0in place across the region, meaning there is a risk to life even for healthy individuals.\n<\/p>\n
\n The Met Office originally declared an amber weather warning for Norfolk until Thursday, but this has now been extended until 9pm on Saturday.\n<\/p>\n
\n Temperatures are set to reach 38C across Norfolk this week. (Image: Newsquest)\n<\/p>\n
\n Chris Cobb, chief operating officer at the N&N, said: “Due to the hot and humid weather, the cooling systems in our MRI scanners are failing and we currently have no working MRI scanners at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, this includes the onsite inpatient MRI scanners and the Community Diagnostic Centre outpatient MRI scanners.\n<\/p>\n
\n Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital chief operating officer Chris Cobb. (Image: NNUH)\n<\/p>\n
\n “We have therefore declared a critical incident.”\n<\/p>\n
\n The MRI department at the hospital trust has a total of four scanners –\u00a0three at its Norwich site and one at Cromer District Hospital.\n<\/p>\n
\n The diagnostic centre at NNUH (Image: Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital)\n<\/p>\n
\n An MRI scanner is a medical machine that uses a strong magnet, radio waves and a computer to create very detailed pictures of the inside of the body, especially soft tissues like the brain, spine and joints.\n<\/p>\n
\n Mr Cobb added: “The operational teams are reaching out to other healthcare providers for help and our estates teams are working towards a cooling resolution, however this situation may not be resolvable in the short term, particularly while the hot weather lasts.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u00a0“We are in the process of contacting all affected patients and we would like to apologise to everyone affected by this incident.\n<\/p>\n
\n An MRI machine at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital (NNUH). (Image: Newsquest)\n<\/p>\n
\n “We recognise the distress that this will cause and will endeavour to get everyone rebooked as soon as our scanners are functioning once more.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Patients who have not been contacted by the hospital are advised to attend appointments as usual.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hundreds of patients have had their appointments cancelled on the hottest day of the year so far\u00a0when\u00a0the machines\u2019…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":656123,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102,2960,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-657125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=657125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657125\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/656123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}