Machines alone won't help N.L.'s MRI waitlists: advocate

Machines alone won't help N.L.'s MRI waitlists: advocate

Wait times for urgent MRIs more than doubled last fiscal year, states NLHS

The announcement of a magnetic resonance imaging machine (MRI) coming to Grand Falls-Windsor came as announcements of multi-million dollar medical equipment always do in Newfoundland and Labrador, according to an advocate for MRI technologists in Atlantic Canada.

"There's a lot of fanfare and celebration about the new piece of machinery but no sort of follow-up announcement of how that piece of machinery is going to be used in an already strained system," said Jennifer Carey, a manager with the Canadian Association of Medical Radiation Technologists, Atlantic Canadian division.

She said she and her association do not object to the equipment being publicly promised. However, MRIs are operated by MRI technologists. The province already has vacancies in the specialty area with existing sites, she said, and working technologists have legitimate concerns of additional pressures related to the needs now for staffing new machines.

Overtime, double shifts, guilt when considering any vacation time are all common right now in the pool of working technologists in Newfoundland and Labrador, Carey said.

They're waiting to hear more while they fight to hold the line on MRI wait lists. They want details of a human resource plan, for one.

CBC contacted Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services for more information about MRI services on the afternoon of Thursday, Oct. 1. There was no further information available from the health authority's communications team as of deadline Tuesday.

N.L. wait times well outside stated standards

According to Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services' annual performance report, released in September, the health authority had poor results with wait times last year. MRI wait times for most non-urgent cases requiring a scan were decreased by about a month, coming down from a 499-day wait to a 467-day wait as of the end of March.

Urgent cases went up from 74 days to 194 days. That increase was attributed to reduced MRI capacity.

"Scanner replacements and outages, combined with staffing challenges that limited service availability, reduced the number of patients that could be accommodated and contributed to longer wait times for urgent cases," the report stated.

The targets adopted by the health authority for MRI waits are the Canadian Association of Radiologists' national targets. That's no more than a seven-day wait for urgent cases, and 60 days for non-urgent cases. In other words, the standard is being missed across the board.

The same annual report from the provincial health authority from a year earlier didn't give wait times for MRI scans in hard numbers. It did note service hours for MRIs were expanded "as staffing levels permitted."

Carey said one of the problems facing Newfoundland and Labrador in particular is the pool for MRI technicians is largely made up of people who were already certified in other areas, like x-ray or CT, changing roles. These other areas are also facing staff shortages right now.

The College of the North Atlantic trains MRI technologists in its medical radiography program.

"We have been advocating for that program to expand to help meet this ongoing demand for years," Carey said, adding the province will need to find a way to add training spaces but also move people through clinical training.

The current graduates are not enough to meet existing demand, she said, while expanding the program will add new demands on MRI techs as supervisors during clinical placements. She said it adds to the need for a clearer human resources plan.

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