Dauphin getting MRI, but fate of rural Manitoba ERs still uncertain after task force report

The Manitoba city of Dauphin found out Thursday it will be getting a new MRI scanner which was put on hold by the province earlier this year but other rural communities are still largely in the dark about the fate of their small, local emergency rooms and hospitals.

The province'swait times task force, which released its report on Wednesday, has recommended closing rural emergency departments that treat a low number of high-priority patients each year.

The report did not, however, suggest specific locations.

The task force was assembled by the provincial government earlier this year to look at wait times for emergency care, as well as surgical and diagnostic procedures, and identify ways to improve the process.

There are currently 63 emergency rooms in rural Manitoba, but 17 of those have long-term service suspensions. A number of others are periodically forced to close temporarily due to staff shortages.

"It is clear the current model is not ideal or sustainable," the report states.

"Rural and remote facilities of all sizes across Manitoba tend to have a critical lack of options for redirecting stable patients from [emergency departments] to more appropriate care sites.

"Few facilities have specialty outpatient clinics, there are no alternate/offsite diagnostic testing centres in these communities, and Minor Treatment Areas and Rapid Assessment Zones are generally not utilized due to lack of capacity, physical space and patient volumes."

Access issue

Health Minister Kelvin Goertzen also didn't offer any hints about how those problems might be addressed on Thursday, when he discussedthe report with media.

Earlier this year, a different task force struck by nine municipalities in southwestern Manitoba recommended closing four emergency rooms in the region and replacing them with urgent care centres. It recommended the closure of emergency rooms in the towns of Boissevain, Deloraine, Killarney and Melita.

Goertzen said different recommendations on changes to rural health care were presented by the province's health regions. He said Shared Health Servicesa new health organization which will help co-ordinate service delivery and planning across the province will look ateach of them and report back in the spring.

Dauphin MRI project to proceed

"That was a difficult decision in the sense that there was different things to weigh," he said.

"On one hand, you had a facility that was essentially built. On the other hand you've got a wait times task force that says you could probably use the capacity that you probably had," Goertzen said, adding that residents in the city had already invested money into the partially built MRI facility.

Construction on an additionat the Dauphin hospital was already underway when the province announced the project would be halted earlier this year, pending the wait times review.

Advocates have said an MRI scanner in Dauphin would significantly reduce travel times for people, who currently have to go to Brandon or Winnipeg for scans.

"Wait times are one thing, but travelling to where the units exist now is another thing," said Doug Deans, chair of the health foundation in Dauphin. The group, along with others, advocated for the machine.

"Being able to have this done within our community is just fantastic," he added.

"A lot of people who are going for an MRI are not in the best of health or the best physical condition, and this beat the heck out of them to drive back and forth," Deans said.

"Also, financially it was a huge burden on some people to pay the cost" of the travel.

Deans said many people wrote letters to the province and a petition was also started calling for the MRIin Dauphin. He believes having an MRIscanner willalso aid in attracting new doctors and specialists to the area.

"This could be a huge feather in Dauphin's cap."

The Opposition NDP said it was pleased with the decision, but lamented the delay.

Goertzen said the machine will now be ordered, but didn't offer a timeline for when it would be installed or up and running.