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Health Sciences Centre recently bought a new state-of-the-art CT scanner to help bring down waiting lists. But the health care bureaucrats forgot to ensure they have enough technologists to run all three machines. by Tom Brodbeck


Health Sciences Centre recently bought a new state-of-the-art CT scanner to help bring down waiting lists, something the Doer government was planning to show off.

The new machine brings the number of CT scanners at the hospital to three.

It's all good, right?

Wrong. The health care bureaucrats forgot to ensure they have enough technologists to run all three machines.

They don't. So one machine is now sitting unused and the hospital is no further ahead in reducing its 10-week waiting list than it was before.

"I walk by it every day," radiology technologist Patti Dech told the Winnipeg Sun. "They're not using it."

Great. So taxpayers paid for a new expensive CT scanner but they're not actually doing any more scans than they used to.

"We don't have enough people to cover it," said Dech. "You can only do as many as physically possible."

HSC has been suffering from a chronic shortage of radiology technologists for years. And while the government boasts about the new machine it bought, the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority has failed to attract and retain enough radiologists to run three machines.

As a stop-gap measure, many radiologists are filling in more overtime shifts than ever before, said Dech. And they're getting burnt out.

"People are exhausted and they can't do it anymore," said Dech, who's worked at the hospital for 21 years. "It's a vicious circle."

The government says it's training more radiologists to help fill the gap. But many of them are leaving the province for Saskatchewan and Alberta where they're paid far more, said Dech.

"They are training more people," said Dech. "But more students are leaving."

Funny, the WRHA seems to have enough cash to expand its bloated bureaucracy and give senior brass healthy salary increases every year.

But they don't have enough money to pay radiology technologists competitive wages.

HSC could provide CT scans for 15 to 16 more patients a day if all three CT scanners were operating, said Al Saydak, who also works as a radiology technologist at HSC.

"It's sitting vacant," said Saydak. "The lights are turned off and it's nice and quiet in there."

Saydak says the machine is supposed to be operating during business hours but his department simply doesn't have the staff to run it.

Meanwhile, Health Minister Theresa Oswald was scheduled to hold a press conference at HSC to show off the new CT scanner. But it got cancelled, presumably because the minister wanted to avoid the embarrassment of showing off a new machine while another one sat unused, staff in the department say.

WRHA spokesperson Heidi Graham confirmed Oswald's press conference was cancelled. But she said it was because of a "scheduling conflict."

Graham also said the third machine at HSC should be up and running next week.

Not sure where they're going to get the technologists to do it.

But we'll follow up next week.

In the meantime, if you're still in the queue, please be patient. They'll get to you eventually.


Source: Winnipeg Sun