Portable pediatric MRI now available at Sask. children’s hospital

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One of Dr. Gregory Hansen’s patients, a child being treated in the intensive care ward of the Jim Pattison Children’s Hospital in Saskatoon, needs a brain scan.

The closest Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) machine is on the other side of a bustling public hallway connecting the children’s hospital to Royal University Hospital, a long corridor with coffee shops and offices and lots of patients, staff and visitors hurrying in all directions.

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For some seriously ill or injured children, like Hansen’s patient, that’s an impossible distance.

“This patient would greatly benefit, (but) is on extreme life support,” he said. “We probably cannot move across the hallway. … For our patients who are on life support, bringing them to an MRI scanner is fraught with difficulties — including pushing them across the hallway, (which risks) having them being disconnected from life-sustaining support.”

Within a month, Hansen expects all that will change.

After a million-dollar fundraising campaign, the children’s hospital has purchased Saskatchewan’s first portable pediatric MRI, which can move around the hospital and take scans right at patients’ bedsides while their parents hold their hands.

This is one of the first machines of its kind in Canada, and doctors say it can’t come soon enough.

“I see it almost being a daily necessity,” said Hansen, who often treats patients who are either too fragile to take across the hallway, or who would need to be moved extremely slowly and with great care.

Hansen and his colleagues say these scans are critical in trauma situations and can help diagnose many neurological conditions, including those caused by head injuries and suspected abuse.

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In 2023-24, the SHA reported 2,993 pediatric patients received MRI services. In the last five years, more than 14,400 pediatric patients have received MRI services.

“This innovative piece of equipment is on the cutting edge of how we improve the care of children when they are critically ill,” Saskatchewan Health Authority Head of Pediatrics Dr. Terry Klassen said. “The demand for the type of imaging this portable MRI provides is great, so as a physician, I am excited to see it in use at the hospital.”

The portable MRI is quieter, less claustrophobic and will be less frightening for many children than the large MRI machines available at RUH, Hansen expects, especially since they won’t have to be alone while being scanned.

“The very fact that they … can have their parents comforting them means that they won’t need the same amount of sedatives that we normally have to use,” he said. “In fact, with the younger kids, we may be able to scan them without providing any sedatives at all.”

The machine is only certified for children aged two to 18, but Hansen said he expects it will soon be approved for use in younger patients, including newborns.

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Now that it has been purchased, Saskatchewan Health Minister Everett Hindley said the provincial government will continue to fund its operating costs, including an MRI technologist.

“It’s a pretty amazing piece of equipment,” Hindley said. “For anyone who has had an MRI — as an adult, or as a kid — it can be a very daunting experience. It’s a big machine with a lot of big magnets, and a lot of noises and things going on. And having this portable pediatric MRI just makes that experience … much easier for the kids, and a lot less scary for them and for their parents.”

The new machine is part of the $5.1 million increase for specialized medical imaging services the government included in its recent budget.

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