15-month wait for routine MRI scan

PATIENTS are having to wait about 15 months for a routine MRI scan at Cork University Hospital while a CT scanner at Mallow Hospital in Co Cork promised by the Government four years ago is still lying idle.

A father of a seven-year-old girl needing an MRI scan of her foot decided to pay €420 for the scan to be taken privately at CUH because he could not bear to see his daughter crying in pain as she waited to be treated as a public patient in the same hospital.

“When I telephoned the hospital before Christmas I was told there was a 14 to 15-month waiting time for an MRI scan. I rang back 10 minutes later and asked that my daughter be treated as a private patient and got a date for the following week,” said the father, who did not wished to be named to protect his daughter.