Patients requiring urgent MRI scans outside of normal operating hours have to wait until the next day, Health Minister Kate Beecroft has confirmed.

Mrs Beecroft was responding to a written House of Keys question from David Ashford (Douglas North), who wanted to know what the process was for patients who required an urgent magnetic resonance imaging outside of 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday, or at weekends.

The minister said: ’If an urgent MRI scan is requested outside normal working hours, the patient will wait until the next working day.

’Every MRI session has allotted slots for urgent referrals, so that patients can be scanned as soon as possible.’

She added that the MRI scanner was presently running at weekends to help reduce waiting times

’However, if an urgent scan is requested over the weekend, the case will be accommodated between routine cases if the on-call radiologist deems it appropriate,’ she said.

MRI uses a powerful magnetic field, radio frequency pulses and a computer to produce detailed pictures of organs, soft tissues, bone and virtually all other internal body structures.

The minister added that computerised tomography (CT) scans were available for emergencies at all times. Such scans were used to produce a detailed image of structures inside the body through the use of data from X-rays.

In response to a separate question, Mrs Beecroft was asked to explain the policy on the use of Alteplase injections for stroke victims.

Mrs Beecroft said Alteplase injections are used to dissolve blood clots that have formed in the blood vessels.

’It is used immediately after symptoms of a heart attack occur to improve patient survival,’ she said. ’It is also used after symptoms of a stroke and to treat blood clots in the lungs (pulmonary embolism).’

But it was only suitable for people who had suffered an ischaemic stroke, she said, and had to be administered by medics with thrombolysis training and qualified in other areas of stroke care.

She said there was a four-and-a-half hour ’window’ to deliver the treatment, due to the risk of bleeding.