A TOP Southampton heart doctor has thrown his support behind an appeal to buy a state-of-the-art machine that will mean the difference between life and death for critically ill youngsters.

Consultant paediatric cardiologist Dr Kevin Roman knows how vital a new portable echo machine will be when it comes to saving the lives of babies born with heart defects and children facing extensive surgery.

So he is thrilled that the Daily Echo has launched the Echo from the Echo campaign to help the British Heart Foundation raise the £49,000 needed to buy the crucial piece of equipment for Southampton General Hospital’s children’s heart unit, which cares for more than 8,000 young hearts.

At the moment, he and his team have four bulky echo machines which are difficult to move from ward to ward, need a lot of space and have to be plugged into the mains power supply, which takes vital minutes to boost up when they are dealing with an emergency situation.

They are also impossible to take to other regional units, where babies may have been born with severe heart defects and need an scan of their heart to allow doctors to diagnose the exact problem.

Currently, in these situations, youngsters have to be transferred to Southampton, and medical teams must wait until the patient is stable enough to be moved, as every transfer comes with its risks.

But all of this can be a thing of the past if the appeal can raise the £49,000 for the highly portable CX50 machine, which is about the size of a laptop and can be taken quickly to the patient’s bedside, wherever they are.

The quicker a scan can be taken, the quicker a diagnosis can be made, which means the patient can get the treatment they need faster than ever before.

It also produces a much better quality scan, allowing for the most accurate diagnosis when dealing with such tiny hearts.

Dr Roman said: “The biggest advantage of this machine is the fact that it is quite small, which means it is completely mobile and we can quickly detach it and carry it to where it is needed without any effort.

“Space is always of essence in intensive care and the emergency department, where there are countless machines and 20 people around the patient’s bed, but with this machine we can just walk in, get the scan done and leave again without any hassle.

“It also has a wireless facility which means once we take the images we can send them directly to the system, which doctors can then access from anywhere in the hospital.

“This is a state-of-the-art machine which we really need in our armoury to ensure our patients get the best care.

“We are very grateful for any help that we can get from the public for this appeal as it will mean so much to so many.”