(Queen’s Park) - The McGuinty Liberals have to answer for Ontario’s worst MRI wait times which are at the Ottawa Hospital, charge two Ottawa MPPs, Lisa MacLeod (Nepean-Carleton) and Norm Sterling (Carleton-Mississippi Mills).  It was revealed that Ottawa Hospital wait times for 9 out of 10 patients is 360 days, more than 12 times the Provincial target and the longest in the Province.

“This is a disgrace,” said MPP MacLeod.  “Clearly Ottawa needs a few more MRI machines and to streamline area hospital waiting lines. The Minister needs to fix this embarrassment and help those who are suffering from excessive waits because of this government’s failures.”

Last summer Dr. Alan Hudson, lead for Ontario’s Wait Times Strategy, issued a report that put the Champlain Local Health Integration Network last in the province in most wait time categories. 

“With a Premier who comes from Ottawa you would think our city would be on the government’s radar screen, but as we learned last summer, wait times in Ottawa and the Champlain LHIN are the worst in the province,” said Sterling.  “It is time Mr. McGuinty and his Ottawa Cabinet Ministers Meilleur and Watson stood up for the residents of our city.”

Across the Ottawa River, 90% of the clients at a private MRI clinic in Hull are Ontario patients fed up with waiting a year for an MRI scan.

Ottawa Hospital's chief of diagnostic imaging recommends that three more MRI machines are needed to tackle what are now the worst wait times in Ontario.

For Immediate Release                                                                         February 25th, 2009

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