Medical imaging devices used to detect and measure a wide variety of diseases – including cancers – are clearly underutilized by hospitals in Quebec’s major urban centers, according to a La Presse survey.

Hospitals – in Montreal, Laval, Sherbrooke, and Gatineau, in particular – the wait times for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computed tomography (CT) exams, (better known as CT scan in English) are among the highest in the province.
The average number of hours of use per device is well below 16 hours per day, according to data collected from these hospitals and obtained by La Presse.
The McGill University Health Centre (MUHC), has seven MRI machines which operate an average of 12.6 hours a day, while there are 10,000 patients on the waiting list. The nine CT devices are used on average 9.4 hours a day while 1500 patients are waiting for this exam.
In an interview with La Presse, the Minister of Health reaffirmed his intention that private MRI and CT exams should be covered by health insurance.
Hospital devices – already paid for by taxpayers – should be used to their full potential before “taking even more money from taxpayers to fund the purchase of devices in private clinics,” says Dubé, APTS.
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