First mobile CT scan coming to WA in bid to screen more regional and mining communities

West Australian

14-06-2025

A mobile CT scan could be the key to early detection of life-threatening diseases in regional patients, who currently have to wait weeks or travel to Perth for a screening.
The CT scan — in-built into a trailer — will be the first-of-its-kind in WA in a bid to service mining towns and regional communities that don't have easy access to the screening tool, which provides highly detailed images of internal organs to help diagnose injuries and diseases.
It is hoped the mobile scanner will be able to detect lung cancer, heart disease, and silicosis — a serious lung disease caused by inhaling silica dust — earlier.
There are only 10 CT scanners in the public health system across regional WA — two each in the Pilbara, Goldfields, Kimberley, Wheatbelt, and Mid West.
Tibi Healthcare founder Nell Gillett, who thought of the idea after seeing gaps in healthcare for mining communities, said it was a service that was 'so desperately needed'.
'Particularly when you're talking about lung cancer, the rates of disease and outcome measures are always worse for regional community members, typically because their disease is found late,' she said.
'They may have had a cough for a couple of weeks but there's no one in town to actually be able to deal with that so their outcome measures are absolutely worse.'
Dr Gillett said the trailer would also visit mining communities to check workers for silicosis.
Siemens Healineers manager Neil Foster, who was a part of engineering the CT scanner, said access to this screening could be life-changing for people.
'The communities access to health care is very limited by distance, by time, and by their personal circumstances to travel to places like Perth,' he said.
'A lot of the infrastructure in those towns doesn't have the capabilities that you have on this machine so to have an equivalent service, they might have to travel thousands of kilometres.
'Half of the world's population has limited access to care and so to actually find people in that situation in an affluent country like Australia, and Western Australia in particular, I think it's really quite a meaningful problem to be able to address.'
The custom-built trailer, named Dr Bobby after Dr Gillett's late father, is also equipped with a consultation room and a room for telehealth appointments.
This means regional patients could do their scan and get results from their specialist all in one visit rather than face a wait.
The availability of this mobile service will be aligned with the upcoming National Lung Cancer Screening Program, which launches in July.
The program will check for lung cancer in high-risk people aged between 50 to 70 who do not have symptoms and will prioritise mobile screening services in remote and regional Australia.
The trailer's first stop will be the Pilbara region in July.