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New MRI suite at Royal Jubilee Hospital aims to reduce wait times

Health Minister announced the addition Thursday morning in Victoria
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Thursday morning at the Royal Jubilee Hospital, Health Minister Adrian Dix announced the opening of a new 3T MRI at the facility. (Kendra Crighton/News Staff)

The Royal Jubilee Hospital boasts a new magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) suite, announced Thursday morning by Health Minister Adrian Dix.

The new 3T MRI is an advanced, state-of-the-art machine, working more quickly to produce higher quality images with shorter turn around between patients. Bringing new capacity to the region, the MRI will aid in diagnosing complex conditions such as neurological diseases, infiltrative heart disease and prostate cancer.

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The project cost the Ministry of Health, the Capital Regional Hospital District, Victoria Hospital Foundation and Island Health a total of $6 million.

The additional MRI is part of the government’s Surgical and Diagnostic Imaging Strategy, which Dix says dramatically reduces waiting times for publicly funded MRI exams. The strategy, launched in March of 2018, saw 233,369 MRI exams conducted provincewide – a 23 per cent increase over the 189,376 exams performed in 2017-18.

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In the fiscal 2018-19 year, the Royal Jubilee conducted 7,640 MRI exams. Island Health expects the facility to be able to add almost 400 more exams to the tally, aiming for over 8,000 MRI’s in fiscal year 2019-20.

Provincial education minister and MLA for Victoria-Swan Lake, Rob Fleming, was in attendance as well and called the new MRI a “big step forward” for health care on the Island.



kendra.crighton@blackpress.ca

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