Delay keeps northern mobile MRI grounded

WINNIPEG — An MRI unit meant to be mobile and travel from Thompson to The Pas to lower wait times and keep families close to home hasn’t budged from its base.

The Thompson-based MRI has completed 1,900 scans since it launched June 6, Shared Health said this week. It has served patients from communities across the Northern Health Region — including Flin Flon, The Pas, Split Lake, Cross Lake and Gillam — with wait times for a scan at just over four weeks. That’s compared to a median wait of more than 25 weeks elsewhere in the province.

The plan for the mobile unit to spend time in The Pas “remains a priority” but has hit a bump in the road, a Shared Health spokesman said.

“The original procurement process for connecting the mobile unit to the hospital resulted in a single bid that exceeded the project’s approved budget, which forced the extension of the project by requiring a second (request for proposal) process,” he said in an email.

Part of the challenge is recruiting and training specialized diagnostic imaging staff, who are in demand across Canada. The mobile unit currently has one full-time MRI technologist and one part-time technologist on site. An additional full-time technologist was hired and will join the team following completion of training later this spring, Shared Health said.

It’s looking at several options to ensure stable staffing, including wage enhancements, the spokesman said. Additional positions are posted and recruitment and retention incentives are being considered, he said.

A medical radiological technologist in The Pas who is the provincial manager for the Canadian Association of Medical Radiation Technologists Manitoba said it’s hard to attract staff who want to work away from home part of the time.

“The initial plan when they first announced this piece of equipment was that the staff that were part of this unit would be deployed with the unit, and their base site is Thompson,” Dayna McTaggart said. The mobile unit is supposed to take turns set up in Thompson and The Pas, which is nearly 400 kilometres away.

McTaggart said there has been no indication as to how long the unit will spend at each site. The uncertainty is causing issues, she said.

“It kind of created an environment where technologists in The Pas were like, ‘I’m not going to upgrade my education to be an MRI tech because that means I have to go to Thompson when the equipment is there, and I have a family life here at home in The Pas, so I don’t really want to be gone for seven days at a time,” McTaggart said.

She said the MRI techs in Thompson feel the same way and don’t want to be deployed to The Pas “for who knows how long.”

Shared Health says expanding diagnostic imaging access in northern Manitoba remains a priority.

“The mobile MRI unit is helping reduce travel for patients and improve access to care in northern communities, and work continues to strengthen staffing and infrastructure to support expanded service across the region,” the spokesperson said.

McTaggart said it was imperative for northern Manitobans to receive improved access to an MRI. Even with the province reimbursing northern patients for some of their transportation expenses, “people in the North are still out of pocket for a great amount of expenses to attend medical appointments and specialty scans,” she said.

» Winnipeg Free Press

“There are people that don’t go to them because they don’t have the disposable income to do that. So having this service closer to home absolutely impacts that.”

» Winnipeg Free Press