JOSHUA ALLAN
The 1019 Report

With the official opening of a new medical scanning facility in Vaudreuil-Dorion last month, residents of Vaudreuil-Soulanges in need of an MRI no longer have to travel over a bridge, although having private medical insurance will make this option more attractive.

The new Radimed Trois-Lacs clinic – on Dutrisac Street in Vaudreuil-Dorion, is the company’s second location in the municipality and its seventh location in the Greater Montreal area. It officially opened Sept. 26, when it unveiled its new MRI machine.

The magnetic resonance imaging technology represents a “meaningful step” for Radimed and for the region, Dr. Adel Assaf, president and chief medical officer of Radimed, said in a statement.

Local residents have already begun taking advantage of the new clinic, which has been in operation since July 3, as the centre has been receiving hundreds of calls a month, said Nathalie Séguin, Radimed’s director of marketing, research and development.

For years, the Vaudreuil-Soulanges population had been “held hostage” by having to travel to either the Hôpital du Suroît in Valleyfield or the Lakeshore General Hospital in Pointe Claire to get MRI scanning, said Assaf, speaking with The 1019 Report.

“Either they have to go to Valleyfield, which is at least 15-20 minutes away from Vaudreuil, St. Lazare and Hudson, and if they go to the Lakeshore, they have to cross the bridge, and it’s not very nice these days,” Assaf said.

Radimed was the only clinic to be approved by the Quebec government to include a new MRI machine into its services in the past year.

“So, it goes to show that there was a need for such a machine in the area,” Assaf added.

Though patients are unable to use their RAMQ cards to cover the cost of MRI services at Radimed, Assaf pointed out that private insurance “covers at least 80 per cent of the cost of these exams.”

As the Vaudreuil-Soulanges population increases at a rate above the provincial average, so too do the number of people who participate in extracurricular activities, especially youth, Assaf added. As a long-time soccer coach, he said that there are between 6,000 and 7,000 youth who participate in sports across Vaudreuil-Soulanges.

“All these young people, when they get to age 13-14, and they get serious injuries in these sports, they need an MRI to look at the ligaments,” he explained, adding that appointments at Radimed are usually scheduled within a week, greatly benefitting these young athletes.

“Elite players have to wait six months to get an MRI at the Valleyfield hospital, now they can get it fairly fast,” he said.