Canadians continue to experience long waits for MRIs and CT scans

  • Fraser Institute

Canada’s health-care system is in dire straits. We face an access crisis in primary care, regular rural emergency room closures, and some of the longest waits for non-emergency surgery in more than 30 years. Indeed, the median wait between referral to a specialist by a general practitioner and receipt of treatment was 30 weeks in 2024, the longest on record

But beyond medical and surgical treatments, Canadians also face significant waits for key diagnostic services. 

In 2024, the latest year of available data, patients could expect a 16.2-week wait for an MRI (more than three weeks longer than what they waited in 2023) and an 8.1-week wait for a CT scan (a week and half longer than in 2023).

Of course, these machines are crucial in the diagnosis and monitoring of many different illnesses. As a result, long waits for these machines can result in delays in diagnosis and the advancing of illness that can impact decisions around treatment and potential outcomes.

But why are there delays for this type of basic diagnostic care?

One explanation is that Canada has lower availability of these machines compared to other high-income universal health-care systems. 

For example, using the latest available data from 2022 and after adjusting for population age, Canada reported 10.6 MRI machines per million population, ranking us 27th out of 31 universal health-care countries and far behind fifth-ranked Germany (32.5 machines per million population). We see a similar story with CT scanners where second-ranked Australia (78.5 units per million) far outpaces Canada (14.6 units per million population), which ranked 28th of 31.

These data also underscore the wider dissatisfaction among Canadians about how our governments steward our health-care systems. According to a recent Navigator poll, 73 per cent of Canadians want major health-care reform.   

In the end, poor access to diagnostic imaging technology can prevent the appropriate triaging of patients and create further delays for scheduled care. Improving access to diagnostic imaging should help reduce delays for care overall and improve the lives of patients and their families.

Mackenzie Moir is a senior policy analyst at the Fraser Institute.