Wait times for MRIs getting worse in Brandon, Dauphin

BRANDON — Wait times for MRI scans have surged in the Prairie Mountain Health region during the last two years.

Despite a campaign promise by the NDP in September 2023 to increase the number of allied health professionals capable of administering diagnostic imaging in northern and rural areas, wait times for MRIs have increased dramatically in Brandon and Dauphin.

Median imaging wait times tripled at Dauphin Regional Health Centre between 2024 and 2026, increasing from eight to 24 weeks, according to the province’s wait time dashboard.

The Brandon Regional Health Centre median wait times for MRI scans more than doubled during the same period, from nine to 23 weeks.

The most recent provincial data show more than 19,000 people are waiting for an MRI across Manitoba, with more than 3,700 of them in the Prairie Mountain Health region.

Jason Linklater, president of the Manitoba Association of Healthcare Professionals, says these delays could impact the whole health-care system.

“There’s a high percentage of decisions that physicians make that are based on diagnostic testing,” Linklater said Friday. “It really is imperative that patients and Manitobans have access to the necessary tests to get treatment in a timely way.”

Magnetic resonance imaging takes pictures of soft tissues and internal organs using a large magnet and radio waves, administered by a technologist.

According to Linklater, there are only 100 MRI technologists in the province, which he cites as a prominent reason for the long wait times.

“The constraint we’re describing is really a training and retention problem. If Manitoba does not train more (technologists) than the ones it has, we’re simply bidding against all of the other provinces for a shrinking pool of technologists,” he said.

Earlier this week, the province announced it had added 4,725 new health-care providers since 2023, including 607 allied health professionals.

However, Linklater said the term “allied health professional” includes 50 different positions, from lab and diagnostic technicians to physiotherapists and audiologists.

A government spokesperson said in a written statement that 700 of the new health-care staff were added to the PMH region but did not specify what kind of health-care providers were represented in that figure.

In June, Doctors Manitoba pointed out that the country’s longest MRI wait times are in Manitoba.

“Physicians are concerned about long wait times in Manitoba for diagnostic imaging, including MRI and CT, which have been among the longest in Canada for several years,” they said in a statement. They also noted that true wait times might be longer than reported.

“Wait times reported by Manitoba Health do not include the period between when your physician first requests the test by fax and when the faxed request is entered into the diagnostic imaging computer system,” the statement said, citing a “major backlog” with diagnostic imaging central intake, which could add weeks or months to wait lists.

Shared Health oversees the program and says wait times are being addressed through technological upgrades, including a Deep Resolve scanning device, which uses “AI-powered MRI software.”

“This advanced technology significantly enhances image resolution while drastically reducing scan times significantly,” the statement said.

Linklater says Deep Resolve technology was added to the Brandon hospital in January 2026, but staff shortages remain: “There certainly can be investment into an MRI machine, but there has to be someone to run that machine,” he said.

— Brandon Sun