Radiologists warn of growing backlog in medical imaging due to COVID-19 pandemic

Radiologists are warning that Canadian hospitals are in serious need of more equipment and staff to deal with medical imaging backlogs that the country was already facing before the COVID-19 pandemic began.

Dr. Gilles Soulez, president of the Canadian Association of Radiologists, said wait times for medical imaging that is critical for diagnoseswas already more than the recommended one month when the pandemic began in March 2020. On average, he said, Canadians were waiting 50 to 82 days for a CT scan and 89 days for an MRI.

Now with the COVID-19 Omicron variant threatening to overwhelm health-care systems again, many more of those appointments are either being delayed or cancelled, said Soulez, who is also a radiologist at the Centre Hospitalier Universite de Montreal and a professor at the University of Montreal.

"Medical imaging is really at the cornerstone of any medical decision," he said. "If you have any problems relating to cancer, you need to have the CT scan to identify the concern and plan your treatment."

Early detection of many diseases is also key to a successful recovery and cure, he said.