Wrenhaven General installs a second MRI scanner to cut waiting lists

Wrenhaven General Hospital has brought a second MRI scanner into use, a move it says should significantly shorten the time patients wait for scans. The machine is housed in a new single-storey extension beside the imaging department and carried out its first patient scans this week after several weeks of testing and calibration.

Until now the hospital has relied on a single scanner, supplemented by a mobile unit parked in the car park two days a week. The hospital says the waiting time for a routine MRI scan currently stands at around nine weeks, and it hopes to bring that down to four weeks by next summer.

Longer days, more scans

With two scanners working, the department will run from 7am until 10pm on weekdays and for part of the weekend. Dr Samira Okonjo, the hospital's lead radiologist, said this would allow around 7,000 extra scans a year. The mobile unit will be retired once the new scanner is running at full capacity.

A scan is often the step that unlocks everything else, whether that is a diagnosis, a referral or reassurance. Making people wait for it is hard for them and for us.

The extension cost €3.8 million, including the scanner itself, and was paid for from the regional health budget with a contribution from the Wrenhaven General Hospital Charity. The charity raised more than €400,000 from fundraising events over two years, including a sponsored swim across Greyling Bay.

The new room has been designed with anxious patients in mind. It has a wider bore than the older machine, soft lighting that can be changed in colour and a screen that patients can watch during the scan. Staff can also play music through headphones, which radiographer Dominic Fairley said helps many patients keep still.

The hospital said patients already on the waiting list would be contacted directly if an earlier appointment became available, and asked people not to call the department to request one. Anyone whose symptoms change while they are waiting should contact their GP or the clinician who referred them.