Since late August, patients who have needed an urgent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan in North Bay have had to travel to other northeastern Ontario communities.
North Bay Regional Health Centre’s MRI scanner has been out of service for scheduled maintenance since Aug. 30. The unit is 10 years old, and is receiving upgrades.
The hospital said in a statement that its MRI department should be partially open on Nov. 15, and services should be back to normal by Nov. 29.
A spokesperson says most MRI requests will continue to get appointments booked for the resumption of services.
However, it is sending urgent cases, including high priority patients such as those who have had a stroke, to three other hospitals in the region; in Sudbury, Timmins and Sault Ste Marie.
“From August until present a total of 10 patients from the North Bay area have accessed MRI services at our hospital, which has not caused an increase in wait times for local and district patients,” the Timmins and District Hospital said in a written statement.
Jason Turnbull, a spokesperson for Sudbury’s Health Sciences North, said the hospital did not have updated statistics on how many MRI patients it has received from North Bay since Aug. 30.
Because Health Sciences North is the regional hospital for northeastern Ontario, Turnbull said it regularly accepts patients from other communities for MRI appointments.
Last month the Sudbury hospital received its second MRI scanner. Turnbull said the unit is still being calibrated, and should be functional in the coming weeks. Once it is up and running, the hospital will temporarily shut down its older unit for upgrades.
The Sault Area Hospital also has an MRI scanner. In a written statement it said wait times for less urgent patients are five to six weeks. The hospital is monitoring the impact of referrals from North Bay to see if it affects those wait times.
Longer wait times in northeastern Ontario
NDP Health Critic and Nickel Belt MPP France Gélinas said wait times for MRI scans in northeastern Ontario have always been longer than the provincial average.
She said it was a long battle to get Sudbury’s first MRI scanner 10 years ago.
“It took 10 years before we could convince the government to bring equity of access to the people of northeastern Ontario and the people of Sudbury,” Gélinas said.
According to the HSN Foundation, the average wait time for an MRI scan at Health Sciences North is 66 days, while the provincial target is 28 days.
