Ambitious world-first plan for stroke victims gets green light

A million dollar plan to develop an aircraft capable of treating stroke patients has been announced by the federal Health Minister Greg Hunt today.

The government is funding research into the plan, which would be a world-first, in conjunction with the University of Melbourne and The Royal Melbourne Hospital.

Professor of Translational Neuroscience at the University of Melbourne, Stephen Davis, who is leading the research, says the first obstacle is reducing the weight of the CT scanner.

“It weighs 500 kilograms, it’s like a big washing machine and we’d like to get that weight down,” he told Neil Mitchell.

“The quickest way will be to get a CT maker to make a much lighter weight CT, which might reduce it by a couple of hundred of kilograms.

“But really the future is much more novel, innovating imaging devices that might be not much bigger than a helmet on the head!”

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