Waiting mammograms getting read

Help has arrivedhelp to clear a pile of 700 unread mammograms after a shortage of radiologists threatened to shut P.E.I.'s breast cancer screening program down.

'What we have to be able to do then is to get out onto the telephones and to indicate to the women … they are now going to be moved forward.' —Health Minister Chester Gillan

Health Minister Chester Gillan told CBC News a radiologist from Ontario arrived on the Island this week and is expected to read close to 400 mammograms before he leaves.

Gillan said two more radiologists are expected to visit P.E.I. before Christmas.

"It does look like we're going to be able to clear up the backlog fairly quickly," said Gillan.

"So what we have to be able to do then is to get out onto the telephones and to indicate to the women who have been told that you're going to have to wait this amount of time, that they are now going to be moved forward."

Gillan said it's hard to say right now how much sooner women will get in for a mammogram. With theprovinceshort two and a half radiologists for more than a year, and some women had been told they would have to wait up to 10 months.

Radiologist Dr. Colin Taylor told CBC News in October that without help, the program would have to be shut down. Gillan said with help now here, Islanders will also be getting results quicker for other diagnostic imaging such as routine X-rays, CT scans and MRIs.

Once the backlog is cleared, Gillan said, a timetable will be set for reading diagnostic imaging.

"In a couple of months at the latest we will be able to indicate that anything, for instance, that is not read here in seven days by our own radiologists will be sent out of province to be read by one of these other individuals," he said.

The images could be sent by computer or by courier to the out-of-province radiologists.

The province is still looking for full-time radiologists to move to P.E.I.