Winnipeg resident voices concern over MRI wait times

Waiting, wondering and worrying about his pain: that’s how Winnipeg resident Mark Yukelis spends much of his time as of late.

“It can be very frustrating, it can be very depressing some days,” Yukelis told Global News. “I’d like to be able to find a position where I’m in no pain whatsoever, but that doesn’t exist.”

Yukelis has a spinal condition that he has previously had surgery on, but he says the pain has now resurfaced.

“I’m a little concerned that I’m needing other fusions on different parts of my spine and that’s what this MRI is for,” he said.

“And it’s very frustrating being in pain constantly, as you can imagine.”

Yukelis says he was deemed a non-urgent case and has been waiting about six or seven months. On Wednesday, he was told the wait would be even longer.

“In July I got a letter saying it wouldn’t be until the end of August, so I decided to pick up the phone today and was told, ‘Oh, you’re about a year out.’”

Yukelis is concerned over how his pain may progress over that time.

“Most days it’s manageable, but I’m a little worried that it’s not going to be manageable in a couple or three months,” he added.

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Provincial data from June shows outside of Winnipeg, MRI wait times are eight weeks in the Prairie Mountain Health Region, 14 weeks in Southern Health-Sante Sud and 15 weeks in the Interlake-Eastern region.

Inside Winnipeg, the wait times are lengthier, with 19 weeks at Pan Am Clinic, 27 weeks at St. Boniface, 29 weeks at Grace Hospital and up to 49 weeks at Health Sciences Centre Adults.

“We have very similar staffing problems in MRI that we have in mammography,” Manitoba Association of Healthcare Professionals president Jason Linklater said.

“We know there’s over 24,000 patients waiting right now for an MRI, the median wait times are the highest since the pandemic at 22 weeks, and it’s totally unacceptable. That being said, all the resources, in terms of available MRI staff, are being used.”

Private U.S. medical clinics marketing to Manitobans

This comes at a time when some private medical clinics south of the border are specifically targeting Manitobans in their marketing. Flyers sent out by mail from Grand Forks Clinic in Grand Forks, N.D., advertise “exceptional care for Canadian patients” just a short drive away from Winnipeg, as well as “MRIs in days, not months.”

Alan O’Neil, the chief executive officer of Unity Medical Centre in Grafton, N.D., says his clinic hasn’t been doing a significant amount of marketing to Canadians, other than some social media and billboard marketing.

“We offer health-care service and we don’t draw geographic lines of where we offer health-care service. We’re open,” O’Neil said.

He says uptake from Canadian patients hasn’t reached pre-pandemic levels yet, but most patients from Canada are coming to his clinic for medical imaging.

“The imaging is the big thing, and it has to do with the supply and demand, and the demand is up there in Canada,” O’Neil told Global News.

“The U.S. has four times the number of MRIs that Canada does per capita, and we’re not the highest in the world, actually Japan is six times (higher). And if you research Canada, it ranks 25th in terms of the number of MRIs per capita.”

In an emailed statement to Global News, a spokesperson for Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara pointed to the previous PC government.

“When the previous government spent years putting more effort into sending people away for health care than fixing care in our own province, it makes sense that a private, for-profit American clinic would try to take advantage of the situation,” the statement read.

“Manitobans can rest assured that our government is focused on improving care right here at home because we believe you shouldn’t have to pay to get health care. We’ve added another MRI scanner to our province and we’re making progress on our commitment to hire more lab techs, allied health professionals and other health care workers so Manitobans can get the diagnostics they need here.”

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