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Ultrasound wait longer than usual

Apr 19, 2011 | 11:56 AM

Those waiting for an ultrasound at Victoria Hospital may have to wait a little longer.

The hospital provides the services as well as acts as a backup for two private clinics in Prince Albert and three clinics in the surrounding health regions, including in Nipawin, Melfort and La Ronge.

“For some reason this year, it seems that there are more of those sites that had disruptions in their services, for a variety of reasons, than usual and it has resulted and an increase of the way time of what was normally about 10 days to 30,” said Doug Dahl, communications officer for the Prince Albert Parkland Health Region.

“There is still an allowance within (that) for the very urgent cases, so there are still spaces made available for the emergency and urgent cases.”

There is no one reason for the facilities’ disruptions. In the case of the Associated Radiologists, they are short an ultrasound technologist, while one is on leave.

“It’s difficult to replace … some of the technical people quickly and easily,” Dahl said.

“We are recruiting right now … Someone who can do ultrasound and echocardiograms, so hopefully once that position is filled then we would be able to work on the backlog as well.

“We hope to address it as soon as possible, but we have to get the staffing in place in order to make that happen.”

The health region has received one call about the wait time from a patient who needed the ultrasound to continue with specialist appointments and other testing. They were able to assist that person, Dahl said.

Doctors are aware of the delay, Dahl said.

The region is communicating that the length of time to get people in for an appointment is longer.

“So the sooner you can start booking people in, the better the chance they will be seen at the time that you would want them to be normally,” he said.

The most common use of ultrasound is maternity purposes, but it is used in a variety of soft tissue diagnostics.

ahill@panow.com