Shortages, burnout among radiation technologists contribute to wait for non-urgent diagnostics

While the province is now posting the wait times on MyHealthNB for non-urgent medical diagnostic tests, the Canadian Association of Medical Radiation Technologists Atlantic hopes the dashboard will make patients and the government aware of the lengthy wait times for non-urgent diagnostics. According to MyHealthNB, the shortest wait time for any non-urgent test is 16 days for screening mammography at the Miramichi Regional Hospital. The longest is 644 days for a bone density test at the Saint John Regional Hospital. The association indicates that while a health issue requiring a non-urgent diagnostic may be minor initially, it could worsen into a chronic problem with time while waiting for medical imaging.