A total of 756 people are on the waiting list for an MRI at the Can Misses Hospital. These are December figures, as explained by the Pitiusas Health Department, pending the updating of last month’s figures.
Despite the high number of patients waiting for an MRI, health sources reiterate that it is not an urgent test, but complementary to others. “It is the radiology service that sets the priority,” they specify, while stressing that only those of spinal cord compression require immediacy.
At the moment, among the priorities are the almost one hundred tests that have had to be rescheduled since Friday due to a breakdown that left the machine inoperative. In fact, six patients had to be referred to Policlinica Nuestra Señora del Rosario (two on Monday and four yesterday morning) for this reason. “These were people who were hospitalized and were transferred by SAMU 061 to be tested and returned back to the hospital,” they point out from the Health Department.
After detecting the fault on Friday, the maintenance company made a remote diagnosis of the MRI and the technical service went to Ibiza on Monday to repair it. The part to be replaced arrived on the island yesterday and, at first, it was thought that the machine could not be fixed until Thursday, however, this was not the case and it started working in the afternoon. “The tests of hospitalized patients who required an MRI are being resumed,” they point out from Can Misses.
The Radiology service performs MRI scans on inpatients and outpatients. This is one of the tests that provides most information to a variety of specialists, such as pulmonologists, traumatologists, neurologists, cardiologists, surgeons or gynecologists, among others.
This means that the service is in operation from Monday to Sunday, from 8am to 10pm, 365 days a year. In global data this translates into some 7,300 MRI scans per year. On average, 20 tests are performed every day, with a duration ranging from 30 to 90 minutes.
Several cancer associations in Ibiza say they have received complaints from patients about the delays in the tests, which, they say, add to the anguish of the diagnosis.
In this line, Apaac explains that, in a meeting held yesterday with the hospital management, they were told that “they are working on the possibility of resuming the agreement that existed with the Polyclinic to decongest the Radiology service”. It should be remembered that this agreement ended when the MRI was installed in Can Misses.
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