Ridge Meadows Hospital will be getting an MRI machine.
"It's a fantastic day. We could not have asked for anything better," said Dr. Bob Wong, head of the medical imaging department at the hospital.
He re-started the conversation about the need for an MRI a year ago, and a working group from the hospital met with both local MLAs to rationalize the need.
The approximately $5 million investment in a magnetic resonance imaging machine buys a "really important piece of equipment," said Maple Ridge-Mission MLA Marc Dalton after the announcement by the health ministry.
"This will allow better patient care locally, and faster care."
Wong credited the Ridge Meadows Hospital Foundation with making a financial commitment toward the project to help move it forward.
Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows patients have to visit other hospitals to receiving imaging from one of the other 25 MRI machines in the province.
Wong said the job of his department is to take requests from clinicians for imaging, and determine whether ultrasound, CT Scans or X-rays might provide the answers. But he calls MRI "the gold standard" and the "test of choice" in many cases.
"It is the best non-invasive way for us to detect what the problem is," he said.
Dalton said the use of MRI technology has been expanding in B.C., with 16 new machines added over the past decade, and the number of images more than doubling from 67,000 per year in 2004 to 143,000 in 2016.
Four new additional MRI machines will be installed in communities facing increased demand: Surrey's Jim Pattison Outpatient and Surgical Centre, Ridge Meadows Hospital in Maple Ridge, Vernon Jubilee Hospital, and Nanaimo Regional Hospital. The new machines are expected to be in place in 2018.
These new additional machines will increase the number of MRI scans being done in B.C., in support of B.C.'s MRI strategy released in 2015, which will see up to 65,000 more scans done annually by 2019.
The full cost of the MRI machines will be determined through a procurement process. An MRI machine generally costs about $5 million. The number of MRI scans done in B.C. has risen from 37,000 in 2001, to a projected 177,000 this fiscal year.
Since 2001-02, B.C. has acquired 16 new MRI scanners, bringing the total number to 25. Including the four announced today, a further 10 new additional MRI units will go into operation in the next two to three years.