The Kelowna General Hospital will soon be able to provide additional medical imaging services to patients in the region.
The provincial government announced Thursday that they are helping fund two new magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines.
The Kelowna General Hospital (KGH) will be adding a new 3T and 1.5T MRI machine.
“This is an upgraded capacity. We’re going to do more MRIs and reduce wait times for people in the Okanagan with this 3T MRI. We’re going to improve their quality bringing it into where we are in the 21st century,” said Minister of Health Adrian Dix.
The project will cost $30 million, with $15.4 million of that funding coming from the provincial government through Interior Health.
$10 million from the Central Okanagan Regional Hospital District and $5 million from the KGH Foundation is also included.
“It’s part of our commitment to investing in local health care right here at home, and part of our larger $40 million commitment to the people of this community, to the services and health care that they experience here at home,” said KGH Foundation CEO Allison Young.
“It’s really exciting for many reasons but I think it demonstrates how government and community can work together to advance priorities that are important to them.”
Currently, the number of MRI scans at KGH is around 7,000 per year.
“There’s still 2,500 people a year waiting, another 2,200 that we’re having to refer elsewhere and we shouldn’t have to do that. People should have access to quality imaging and care right here in their community,” Young said.
The introduction of a new machine and the replacement of the current one will double the number of scans done and reduce the length of the scan, allowing for more people to be seen.
The machines will also be able to diagnose complex conditions, such as certain heart diseases, neurological diseases and prostate cancer.
“It’s not just important in terms of overall wait times in terms of overall wait times for surgeries, it’s important when you don’t need surgery. The diagnostic care to put you on the right path, answering those questions by reducing wait times for MRIs and CT scans has been a major priority,” said Dix.
Young says the announcement Thursday is one of the many steps that need to be taken to improve health care in Kelowna.
“These investments at KGH in innovation and people who are doing the work. It doesn’t just support patients and patient care but ensures that we have what we need now and future generations will hopefully not be dealing with the same problems,” said Young.
Construction on the project is set to begin summer of 2023 and be completed in 2025.