Niverville Heritage Holdings announces diagnostic centre

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This article was published 15/08/2017 (2445 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Niverville Heritage Holdings Inc. has announced another health care infrastructure project is coming to its Niverville campus: a diagnostic services centre that will house a medical laboratory, ultrasound and x-ray services, and an MRI machine that will serve residents of the Manitoba capital region and beyond.

At a Wednesday press conference, NHHI vice-president Gordon Daman revealed the specifications and innovative multi-partner agreement behind the $1 million, 2,400-sq-ft. facility, scheduled to open in late 2018 on the southwest corner of the Niverville Heritage campus. The community gardens that currently occupy the spot will be relocated to another part of the campus, he said.

The facility is intended to keep diagnostic services in step with the expanding clinical services already available on-site, including Open Health Niverville, a medical centre currently in the final stages of construction.

Daman estimated the new Heritage Life Diagnostic Centre will perform 2,500 to 3,000 MRIs annually in Niverville. At least that many Manitobans currently travel to places like Pembina, N.D. each year for private MRIs, he said. Hours of operation will likely be Monday to Friday, and seven to 12 full-time staff positions will be created.

However, Daman acknowledged the nature of the agreement behind the new centre will attract provincial attention—and quite possibly, criticism—even as the facility’s list of features starts local conversations.

Unlike Open Health Niverville—which was formed out of a partnership between Southern Health, the Town of Niverville, the Niverville Medical Clinic, and NHHI—the diagnostic centre springs forth from a different agreement between NHHI, the Town of Niverville, Liver Care Canada’s Felipe Campusano, and Niverville resident Yves Kimbo. The agreement necessitated the formation of a new arm of NHHI: Heritage Life Community Health Services Inc. (HLCHS), to be created in the coming weeks.

Practically speaking, the agreement means patients seeking an MRI scan at the diagnostic centre will have to pay out-of-pocket, starting with a $50 up-front administration fee, in exchange for an end run around the public MRI wait times that frequently stretch to over 20 weeks in Winnipeg and surrounding regional health authorities. All appointments at the new centre, except for those from Manitoba Public Insurance and the Workers Compensation Board of Manitoba, would be funnelled through HLCHS.

Crucially, the agreement allows the parties behind the centre to determine the appointment fees for diagnostic services (again excluding MPI and WCB referrals). If a particular MRI scan costs, for instance, $1,000, the individual would then need to pay the remaining $950.

However, Daman hopes a graduated fee system will make the centre’s diagnostic services affordable to a wider swath of the public. Patients will have the option to provide a portion of their income tax return, in order to determine if their household income qualifies them for a discounted fee. The MRI fee could then be reduced by 25 percent for those below the first tax bracket, Daman explained, and gradually move upward as household income increased, with those above the highest bracket rendered ineligible for a discount.

The agreement also stipulates 50 MRIs will be performed annually at no cost for research purposes, in connection with ongoing University of Manitoba studies of dementia. In a further twist, after the 25-year lease from NHHI expires, the diagnostic centre will be donated to the Town of Niverville, free of debt.

Anticipating charges of privatized health care in disguise, Daman noted the diagnostic centre will be administered by a non-profit corporation, in partnership with a municipal government. The nature of the agreement led Niverville’s mayor, Myron Dyck, to call the new centre a “third option,” distinct from the public/private binary.

“We know that there are others who are travelling outside of our country for diagnostic services. This now gives them another option, it helps to reduce the wait times, and is part of assisting other levels of government in the delivery of other health services,” Dyck told The Carillon following the announcement.

In a news release, Daman maintained the new centre “remains within the spirit of the Canada Health Act,” and said the arrangement behind it “sustains Canada’s treasured universal health care system.”

“Health care needs to remain universal,” he added in an interview.

The announcement of the diagnostic centre now awaits responses from the provincial and federal governments. As he waits, Daman said he is confident the province’s health department will recognize the value of what he called “innovative models” in contemporary public health care. He added the diagnostic centre will “relieve pressure” from the public system by allowing those whose MRI scan reveals they need surgery to then get onto a surgery waiting list more quickly.

Noting Shared Health Services Manitoba—a new, centralized health entity announced by Minister of Health Kelvin Goertzen in late June—will be in place on April 1, 2018, Daman hinted the diagnostic centre’s announcement was carefully timed.

“I believe it’s critical that this announcement takes place now, while there is a reimaging of how health care services are administered within the Province of Manitoba,” he said.

A response from the federal government, however, may take three to five years, Daman estimated. Once the new centre opens, the federal health minister will need to decide whether its operations model constitutes a reason to reduce Manitoba’s federal health care transfer funds. However, Daman stressed the clinic’s agreement is categorically distinct from those behind fee-for-service MRI scans in Saskatchewan, which have drawn criticism from Ottawa in months past.