In December, 60-year-old Dean Simpson injured his back after slipping and falling on some ice. The nerve running down to his left leg was pinched between two discs, causing him pain he described as feeling like a drill bit going through his bones.

He was in so much agony that he barely left the house. A month and a half following his injury, Simpson knew the wait to receive medical care could be much longer.

“I got a letter from St. Boniface Hospital MRI, and the letter said ‘We will contact you again in three months, to let you know how much longer you’re going to be waiting for an MRI,’” Simpson recalls.

Simpson was then told by a health-care worker that it could be an additional six- to twelve-month wait for surgery to fix the problem. The pain was getting worse, and he decided he couldn’t bear it for that long.

In June, Simpson and his wife flew to a private clinic in Mexico. There, he had an MRI scan and was scheduled for surgery within days. But the price tag — paid out of his own pocket — was more than $30,000.

“I don’t think we’ll ever pay it off,” says Simpson. “That’s going to just sit on the line of credit and we’ll have to make interest payments on it until we sell the house, basically.”

He’s elated that the pain is now gone, but he has lost much of the use of his left foot. With great effort, he can lift it slightly off the ground, but cannot move it laterally, and has very little sensation.

With time and intense physiotherapy, Simpson may regain some movement, but he believes he would have full use of his foot if he’d been diagnosed and treated sooner. He also worries he may have lost the use of his foot entirely if he had waited longer.

Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara says Manitobans shouldn’t have to take such drastic measures to get care.

“We’re training more MRI technicians and we’re doing the work of making sure the program and training they need is direct entry, so a faster path to that career choice,” says Asagwara. “But we know there’s more work to be done here. This is not something that gets solved overnight.”

The Manitoba NDP have made multiple promises to cut down diagnostic and surgical wait times. Asagwara says they have increased the overall number of MRIs being offered in the province, and last month launched a mobile MRI unit in the Northern Health region to take pressure off Winnipeg Hospitals.

In a statement, Shared Health says their diagnostic department has been “implementing initiatives aimed at reducing MRI wait times for lower back pain and knees.” The health authority added they are upgrading software on MRIs across the province and adding more evening and weekend staffing capacity.

In Winnipeg hospitals, median wait times range from 17 weeks at the Health Sciences Centre to 46 weeks at St. Boniface Hospital, according to data from the province’s website.

Simpson says it’s unreasonable for anyone to have to wait that long.

“You know that a cure is there, that you can feel better. But you’re just being told, six months to a year, six months to a year, six months to a year.”