Wait times get $42.4-M pill

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Dr. Brock Wright

The wait for a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan in Manitoba could be cut by more than half in the coming year and the queue for echocardiograms may be slashed to 10 weeks from 44, health officials say.

They were speaking Thursday after the Selinger government announced it would spend $42.4 million to cut wait times for a variety of medical tests and procedures, including hip and knee replacements.

Health Minister Theresa Oswald made the announcement at a news conference at St. Boniface General Hospital.

She said doctors are increasingly using MRI scans to detect diseases. That has caused wait times to rise to 17 weeks for non-emergency cases.

Waits for MRI scans have been as little as six weeks in Manitoba. "We'd like to see it come down to that neighbourhood again," Oswald said Thursday.

The province plans to fund 12,000 more MRI scans this year. The Winnipeg Regional Health Authority expects that will increase capacity by 20 per cent.

The government has come under pressure as wait times and waiting lists have grown for cardiac tests and procedures.

The current wait time for an echocardiogram for non-emergency patients is 44 weeks. New funding announced Thursday is expected to reduce that to 10 weeks or less, the WRHA estimates.

The province will employ the Maples Surgical Centre for a year to help get wait times for echocardiograms under control while boosting capacity for the heart tests at three hospitals.

It will also increase the number of annual cardiac surgeries by 75 in an attempt to slash long waiting lists for non-emergency procedures. The Free Press reported last month that the number of patients awaiting heart surgery in Winnipeg was close to double what it was last September. The soaring backlog caused hospital officials to temporarily refuse all but life-threatening cardiac cases from northwestern Ontario.

Dr. Brock Wright, a senior WRHA official, said hospital officials are also looking at patient referrals to see where wait times can be improved. A physician may always refer patients to the same orthopedic surgeon, for example, and that can lead to an imbalance in surgeon workloads.

"You get too many patients waiting for a particular surgeon and not enough waiting for another," Wright said.

Through an expanded central intake system, patients will be given a choice -- stay with the preferred or designated surgeon or shave weeks off a wait by having surgery done by another who has a smaller backlog.

That's music to Rivers resident Barb Sveistrup's ears, and hopefully her hip.

"I'd be thrilled to hear that," she said. "I'd go anywhere."

Sveistrup, an active 68-year-old who volunteers with her church and the local hospital, has been waiting in increasing pain since August for a new hip. In March, she got bumped to the "urgent" list but still faces another six months because of a shortage of operating-room space.

The Conservative opposition championed Sveistrup's case in the legislature recently.

Conservative health critic Myrna Driedger said the NDP promised 12 years ago to improve medical wait times. Yet some, such as for echocardiograms and MRIs, are among the worst in the country, she said.

"Basically, I don't know why any Manitobans would trust this announcement now," she told reporters.

-- with files from Mary Agnes Welch

larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca

Manitoba's 'wait' reduction plan

An extra $17.2 million in cardiac funding will be used to:

-- Schedule 75 more cardiac surgeries per year.

-- Greatly increase the number echocardiograms. The province will contract out an estimated 3,000 tests to the Maples Surgical Centre during the next year. It will also boost the number done at city and Brandon hospitals by a total of 4,000 per year.

-- Improve system efficiencies.

An $11.5-million boost in orthopedic services will:

-- Add "hundreds" of hip and knee replacements annually at Winnipeg hospitals as well as at Morden-Winkler.

-- Allow for a new shoulder-replacement day surgery program at the Pan Am Clinic.

-- Enhance a central intake system designed to reduce surgical waits by better balancing surgeons' workloads.

An $11.5-million hike in diagnostic imaging funding will be used to:

-- Install a temporary, mobile MRI at Health Sciences Centre.

-- Expand MRI and ultrasound machine use hours in Winnipeg.

-- Add a new ultrasound machine in Portage la Prairie.

-- Improve patient flows.

-- More than $2 million will be spent to increase the number of patients who can be treated for sleep disorders.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition May 27, 2011 A5