As of March 11, 294 patients have travelled from Wellington, K\u0101piti Coast, Hutt Valley, Taranaki and Wairarapa for MRI scans.<\/p>\n
Health NZ group director of operations Katherine Fraser-Chapple said Whanganui\u2019s unit had become an \u201cimportant diagnostic resource supporting patients across the lower North Island\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a positive initiative to get patients across the Central Region faster access to care,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they choose not to travel to Whanganui, they can wait for an appointment locally; this eases the pressure on resources in Wellington and the Hutt Valley, so those who can\u2019t or prefer not to travel can be seen sooner too.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fraser-Chapple said since the initiative began, Wellington\u2019s average wait time had gone from six months to no more than four months.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe average wait time in Whanganui has remained under four weeks,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
A wider range of Whanganui patients were able to be scanned in Whanganui instead of travelling to Palmerston North, which has one public and two privately owned MRI machines, she said.<\/p>\n
Whanganui Hospital\u2019s MRI scanner is the only machine in the district and one of seven across the Central Region.<\/p>\n
Patients from outside the district have been offered $150 petrol payments to assist with travel for scans in Whanganui.<\/p>\n
The decision to offer petrol vouchers has been criticised by the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMS), which calls it a \u201cBand-Aid approach to providing healthcare\u201d.<\/p>\n
ASMS executive director Sarah Dalton said Health NZ was prioritising short-term fixes over the need to distribute more resources, such as more staff, machines and facilities, to Greater Wellington hospitals.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat requires an investment approach to health care and, honestly, all Health New Zealand is interested in is meeting those health targets and getting back to a zero budget in what we consider to be an underfunded health system,\u201d Dalton said.<\/p>\n
The scheme excluded a \u201csignificant number of people\u201d such as those without access to a car, with work commitments or no alternative childcare options, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201c[They] have no option but to wait, potentially increasing their risk for worse outcomes \u2013 this is substandard care.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ASMS was \u201cextremely concerned\u201d about long waits for scans across the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe urgently need workforce targets and a staffing plan that would help [Health NZ] attract and retain radiology staff and allow patients to access the healthcare they need in the communities where they live.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fraser-Chapple said MRI wait times depended on the level of clinical urgency, with all patients seen within the nationally recommended timeframes.<\/p>\n
\u201cUrgent scans are completed within two days, semi\u2011urgent within two weeks, and routine scans within six weeks,” she said.<\/p>\n
MRI scans have been introduced at Whanganui Hospital on weekends.<\/p>\n
Fin Ocheduszko Brown is a multimedia journalist based in Whanganui.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As of March 11, 294 patients have travelled from Wellington, K\u0101piti Coast, Hutt Valley, Taranaki and Wairarapa for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":357588,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[6877,12509,34518,2082,134,527,3274,24176,16774,18698,111,139,69,1118,6293,91377,5914,9100,14005,61,274,55837,3382,5273,52,1883,38916,80],"class_list":["post-357587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-appointments","tag-capacity","tag-centres","tag-for","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-hospitals","tag-hundreds","tag-larger","tag-mri","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-patients","tag-quicker","tag-regional","tag-such","tag-times","tag-to","tag-travel","tag-upgraded","tag-using","tag-wait","tag-wellington","tag-whanganui","tag-whatu","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=357587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357587\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/357588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}