P.E.I.'s first private MRI clinic set to open in Summerside this spring
Gwyneth Egan | CBC News | Posted: January 21, 2025 10:17 PM | Last Updated: January 22
Diagnostic centre's owners also recently opened a private cataract surgery clinic in Charlottetown
Prince Edward Island's first private clinic for magnetic resonance imaging is set to open in Summerside this spring, says one of the new diagnostic centre's owners.
"Personally, I see patients waiting very, very long times for MRIs, and as we know, it's been well publicized that the waits are excessive," said Guy Boswall, a Charlottetown ophthalmologist.
"Now we have patients going to Moncton to have their MRIs, and so we felt this was something that we should be able to deal with on Prince Edward Island."
Construction is set to begin soon on a building at 107 Walker Ave. to accommodate the clinic.
The diagnostic centre's owners also recently opened a private cataract clinic in Charlottetown in December 2024.
The idea of a private MRI clinic is "nothing new," Boswall said.
"There are similar centres across the country that provide medicare-based health care," he said. "So we're not doing anything new here on P.E.I."
Boswall said he hopes the MRI clinic will operate in the same way the cataract clinic does, with Health P.E.I. paying the bill. But there are currently no contracts to make that sort of agreement official.
"Health PEI has not formally engaged with the operators of the MRI clinic opening in Summerside," the agency said in an emailed statement.
"Health PEI will be launching a procurement procedure in the coming months to explore MRI capacity on the Island to help manage the growing demand for service and to prevent further backlog."
The health agency said that any provider of MRI services — whether it be the Atlantic Veterinary College or a privately operated clinic like Boswall's — will be "carefully selected to meet all standards of quality, safety, and value."
Concerns about access
According to Health P.E.I. statistics from 2024, about one in 10 Islanders waited more than two years for a routine MRI. That's despite the agency's target wait time being 12 weeks.
Rather than wait, some Islanders have been paying more than $1,000 out of pocket for private MRIs in Moncton.
Some critics said they're concerned about the privatization of health care on P.E.I.
"We don't need a private MRI clinic. What we need to do is put the money in the public system," said Mary Boyd, chair of the P.E.I. Health Coalition.
"Going to the private sector does not cure the waiting lists. It can actually lengthen them, and the research has shown that."
The development of a new private clinic on P.E.I. is "very scary," said Liberal MLA Gord McNeilly, the Opposition's health critic.
"This creeps into our system and it hurts our public system," McNeilly said.
The delivery of health care through private clinics is "basically the start of a two-tier system," he said.
McNeilly is also worried about how the MRI clinic will be staffed.
"It's going to create a vacuum of employees — much-needed employees — that are working hard for the public system."
Boswall said the clinic plans to recruit from across Canada and will try not to encroach on the staff at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.
'Unchartered territory'
Summerside was chosen as the location for the private clinic due to its proximity to the Prince County Hospital, which currently does not have an MRI, said Boswall.
He said the machine has been purchased and design work is underway.
McNeilly said Health P.E.I. needs a better strategy and business plan.
"If Health P.E.I., with a billion-dollar budget, can't put another MRI clinic in, how can the private sector do it? Health P.E.I. can do it, they just chose not to," McNeilly said.
"This is uncharted territory for our system and ... I'm very worried about where it's going from here."