St. Joe’s hospital readies for mammogram demand after Queen’s Park change

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St. Joseph’s Health Care London’s renowned breast care program is ramping up operations, planning renovations, hiring more staff and extending hours since the province’s move to expand mammogram eligibility.  

The Ontario government last month dropped the mammogram self-referral age to 40 from 50, a move St. Joseph’s estimates will increase the number of screening appointments by 18,000 in the region each year.  

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“This is going to be a new group of patients we provide care for,” said Stephen Nelli, director of medical imaging at St. Joseph’s. “It’s exciting work. We know it’s the right thing for our patients.” 

The hospital has already hired several mammography technologists and will be looking for more, Nelli said. It’s increased the hours at its clinic to respond to the new pool of patients that are now able to come through their doors.  

Mammograms, a specialized type of medical imaging used to detect breast cancer, are available at St. Joseph’s and other clinics in the community. Of the 17 spots in the region that do mammograms, the St. Joseph’s clinic does the highest volume, with 750 appointments each month before the province’s latest announcement.  

The hospital is expecting to see more patients, not just from women seeking mammogram appointments, but from women who are referred for diagnosis and treatment following a screening.  

Handling both groups of patients will be a balancing act, Nelli said.  

“As we increase our resources – staffing, radiologists, equipment – we need to be cognizant of how much we allocate to additional screening to make sure that we also have the capacity for assessments that require additional mammography, ultrasounds or breast MRI,” he said. “These are all things at the back of our mind.” 

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In the medium-term, St. Joseph’s is planning renovations to turn offices into clinical space. The hospital is also expecting to bring in new breast imaging equipment in the next one to two years, Nelli said. 

“That will increase our capacity,” he said, adding there is still procurement processes and approvals that need to take place. “We’ll be able to put more patients through the system.”  

The hospital is also tapping student talent from the Ivey business school at Western University to help it plan patient flow through its rapidly growing breast program, Nelli said.  

“That work is looking at predictive modelling of our breast care centre, assessing both the demand we have now and the expected increase in demand,” he said. “It take variables into account and it helps us determine, in the future, depending on what we change, what our wait times will be.” 

St. Joseph’s, along with other community partners, is working on an online booking system to help women find mammogram appointments in the London-area.  

Provincewide, the expansion of Ontario’s breast screening program will mean an additional one million women are eligible to get a mammogram. Of those, the province is estimating about 305,000 will come forward for screening. 

jbieman@postmedia.com  

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