Improved MRI wait times reported at Erie Shores Healthcare in Leamington

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Officials with Erie Shores Healthcare in Leamington are reporting improved wait times following the opening of a permanent state-of-the-art MRI suite at the beginning of the year.

A mobile MRI unit became operational in May 2024 to help reduce the backlog of cases, then in Jan. 2025, the permanent MRI suite opened with the province announcing at that time an additional $540,800 annually in funding.

Erie Shores’ Clinical Director of Outpatient Services, Alicia Lutz, said that funding allowed them to ramp up operations to 16 hours a day effective April 1.

“We’ve been seeing quite a few patients every month, around 500,” Lutz said.

“Since we started last year in May, we have seen over 4,700 patients, so we are estimated to get to about 5,000 by the end of October.”

Lutz said the hospital has been able to reduce wait time by at least a quarter.

“We’re one of four MRIs within the region that are all running, in theory, the same amount of hours, so being able to reduce that wait time from a year and a half down by a quarter is pretty significant for the community,” she said.

Lutz said wait times are hovering around the six-month mark.

“Initially, we were only taking patients from Windsor Regional’s queue to kind of bring that extraordinary long wait time down, but now, we have opened up our queue to all the providers in the region and I would say right now we have about six months out of patients to book still,” said Lutz.

Lutz said currently the Erie Shores MRI unit operates with six staff, with a total of $1.34 million in funding provided by the province annually.