Push to have MRI added to new Portage la Prairie hospital

There are 14 MRIs in Manitoba, and now there's a renewed push to get another one that would go inside the new hospital being built in Portage la Prairie.

The new hospital is still under construction, and adding an MRI into the design now would potentially save taxpayer dollars.

Judith Jeffries has been waiting four months for an MRI to see if she needs surgery on her knee. She's also been waiting eight months for another one of her brain.

"I’m in the loop, and I could be in the loop for a while," she said.

It's also been a month since her husband Dave was told he needed an MRI of his kidney.

"He's already had kidney cancer once,” Judith said.

“And I sit back and I think, you know, how quickly will it grow the second time and what stages of that?”

The vegetable farmers live just outside Portage la Prairie where a new $455 million hospital is being built with no MRI inside of it.

“Manitoba deserves this, and we will not stop until this MRI goes into the Portage hospital,” said Portage la Prairie MLA Jeff Bereza.

The project started under the PCs, and with the opening expected in 2025, the area's MLA says politics aside, the time to add an MRI is now.

"We're probably looking at three to four million more money if we wait until after construction is completed,” Bereza said.

There's also a standing offer from the Portage Hospital Foundation to contribute millions if the province agrees to add an MRI to the plans.

"We hope that if the decisions made that, that $5 million can have a real impact for the project,” said Tara Pettinger, executive director of the Portage District General Hospital Foundation.

The Jeffries have given up on getting their scans done in Manitoba and are now planning a trip to get them done privately in Quebec.

"I don't want him to go too long. I’d like him around another 20 years, if I can,” Judith said.

What they aren't giving up on is getting an MRI inside their new local hospital, so others won’t have to wait.

"I think it's desperately needed, not only for us, but for the other 24,000 people in the province that are waiting,” Judith said.

According to the latest information from the province's dashboard, the median wait time for an MRI is 21 weeks.

Shared Health says patients deemed to have urgent concerns are always prioritized and have little to no wait for MRI scans

A ministerial spokesperson told CTV News: "We will continue to invest in this new hospital and we welcome the new surgery, dialysis, emergency and other important service capacity the completed facility will add to our province.”