When Trevor Bryde was diagnosed with lymphoma, he was told it would take eight weeks to get a PET/CT scan to determine the specific type of cancer.
However, due to a new public-private health-care partnership, Bryde was able to get a scan in a week and start treatment sooner.
“My oncologist told me we have a private clinic in Burnaby that is part of the BC cancer clinic system, we can get you in there,” Bryde told Global News.
“And this is all within a week. It happened really fast.”
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A new cancer detection tool at Initio Medical Group could offer many British Columbians a faster path to life-saving diagnoses.
The Omni Legend PET/CT system, the first of its kind in Western Canada, is already making an impact by reducing wait times and allowing patients to start treatment sooner.
Dr. François Lamoureux, president of the Canadian Association of Nuclear Medicine, emphasized the need to expand access to these scans.
“In the past, it was very difficult to have a rendezvous, so there was a huge waitlist because there was not any availability, why? because building these units is expensive and takes years.
Today with the principal that we use PPP public-private partnership the government are able to partner with the clinic and offers accessibility to the patients which is affordable.” Lamoureux explained.
Currently, MSP-covered PET-CT scans are only available at a limited number of hospitals in B.C. Through this partnership, more patients can receive timely imaging without relying on out-of-province services or long hospital waitlists.
Rather than a shift toward privatization, this initiative demonstrates how public-private partnerships can improve patient outcomes by integrating resources to expand publicly funded care.
As demand for advanced imaging grows, similar partnerships could help ease pressure on the public health care system, ensuring more timely access to diagnostic tools for many British Columbians.
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