Opposition NDP call on province to change how MRI procedures booked
Leader Ryan Meili responding to report from provincial auditor
The Opposition NDP is calling on the province to change the system of booking MRIs in the province.
Leader Ryan Meili responded to a 2017 report on MRI waitlist times by the provincial auditor. The issue is expected to be in the auditor's upcoming June report.
Meili described the current system as a "failed experiment."
"This model has been tried in various versions of having parallel private user-pay MRIs in Alberta, Quebec and other places, and every time it's tried you actually see wait times go up instead of down," he said Thursday.
"This experiment, which was never a good idea to begin with, to have some patients jumping the queue ahead of others because they can afford to pay, we've got it not working, [we've] actually seen wait times go up."
"We need a healthcare system that puts people first, regardless of their ability to pay," he said.
The province's wait list for MRIs doubled between 2015 and 2019, with more than 10,000 patients waiting when data was last reported in June, 2019.