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For Immediate Release
May 21, 2002
CROSS BORDER SHOPPING IN 2002: MRI
private MRI facility in Ogdensburg, N.Y., catering to residents of
Kingston and southeastern Ontario who are currently on long waiting
lists for the procedure.
Syed Haider, president and CEO of Quinte MRI, told The
Whig-Standard that Canadians are guaranteed an appointment within a
week of contacting the facility - more likely within 48 hours - and
will receive the results the same day. The company even provides a
free lunch while a radiologist interprets the MRI images.
At Kingston General Hospital, the only hospital in southeastern
Ontario equipped with an MRI machine, waiting times range from 24
hours to several months, with the most urgent cases receiving
attention first. The system is so clogged - there are currently
1,500 people on the waiting list - that some of the more pressing
cases are forced to wait two weeks longer than the hospital
considers desirable.
While cross-border health-care shopping is not new, it comes with a ..
hefty pricetag. The cost of an MRI at the Ogdensburg facility is
$500 US. By comparison, Ontario residents pay nothing up front for
an MRI as the procedure is covered by provincial health insurance.
But for people currently waiting for their turn in the massive
cylindrical magnet - the top-of-the-line diagnostic tool for soft
tissue injuries and diseases - long waits also come with a cost by
prolonging the anxiety associated with ill health.
The Ogdensburg facility, called Thousand Island MRI, expects to
attract 500 Canadians a year, but Haider said the company's survival
does not depend on them. Ogdensburg is just across the border from
Brockville, about an hour's drive from Kingston.
'STATE-OF-THE-ART'
Quinte MRI has signed a 51/2-year, multimillion-dollar contract
with the Claxton-Hepburn Medical Centre to run a "state-of-the art"
imaging facility on the hospital campus.
As part of the agreement, Claxton-Hepburn promises to send all its
patients to Thousand Island MRI. The anticipated 2,000 annual ..
referrals are "more than enough to cover our costs," Haider said.
Quinte MRI operates two other MRI facilities, one in St. Louis,
MO., and the other in British Cayman Islands, south of Cuba. The
St. Louis facility was the 32nd MRI centre to open in that city.
Since it opened four years ago, four more have opened and all are
doing well, Haider said.
"In my market research I found close to 1,000 Canadians crossing
the border every month into the Niagara region of New York and
Pennsylvania, where there are six or seven MRI centres very close to
the border," he said. "They felt they couldn't wait.
“If you talk to physicians," Haider added, "they will tell you that
patients [in Canada] spend anywhere from five to six months on a
waiting list."
Peter O'Brien, vice-president of program support at KGH, said the
hospital doesn't make a point of tracking people who currently
travel to the United States for an MRI procedure, but he has no
doubt they do go.
Because of the hospital's long waiting list and a mechanism that
allows the referring physician to "make sure the patient's condition
is not getting worse," some people on the list are moved to a new
category that enables them to have the procedure earlier, O'Brien
said. "This can, to some people who don't understand the
circumstances, create a problem because it seems like someone has
jumped the line. But it [the system] is based on acuity and need."
The demand for MRIs has more than doubled at KGH in the last three
years as the machine's diagnostic capability has been exploited by
physicians. In 1998, the hospital carried
out 8,098 MRI procedures.
The following year, the number of procedures jumped to 12,000. In
2000, there were 18,000 MRI procedures performed at KGH and 19,000
last year. About a quarter of the patients who receive MRIs at KGH
are referred from Ottawa, where waiting times are even longer.
Based on demand and the priority given to MRIs in the latest Throne
Speech, KGH is updating its business case to the provincial health
ministry to include a new full-sized MRI machine and a smaller "open
magnet" capable of imaging smaller parts of the body.
According to O'Brien, the cost of the machines and constructing a ..
facility to house them is approximately $3 million. The cost of
operating the MRI is about $500,000 a year.
"They [the new machines] would certainly put a major dent in the
waiting list," he said. "The other issue is that machines do break
down and they have to come down for service as well.
"There's a lot of opinion that we should have two machines
minimum."
At the moment, the MRI machine at KGH operates from 7 a.m. to
midnight Monday to Friday and all day Saturday. The MRI is staffed
on Sundays for emergencies only. The hospital has even explored the
possibility of operating the MRI between midnight and 7 a.m. as well.
Haider, who taught for 28 years with the Hastings County Board of
Education before forming Quinte MRI with his brother, said the
Ogdensburg facility is already receiving enquiries from Ontario
residents. In addition to calling the Belleville office, they visit
the company's Web site - www.quintemri.on.ca - and can even book an ..
appointment online.
"The Web site receives about two to three hits a week from
Ontarians who want to know where they can book an MRI," he said. "We
know there's a market out there of people who get so frustrated
[with long waiting times]."
This article appeared in the May 21 2002 edition of the Kingston-Whig Standard a special thanks to Christine Brousseau, for sending me the article via email.
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