When Lois Breed talks about the struggle to get her husband, Michael, the appointment he needs for his ongoing cancer treatment, her voice is filled with exhaustion.
“It has been so frustrating,” she said. “You call a number and it will ring 25 times, and then they put you on hold for an hour.”
Breed isn’t alone in her struggle. A shortage of medical imaging technicians is a critical problem causing serious delays in care for our entire community.
Michael Breed was first diagnosed with leukemia, then lymphoma leukemia. After waiting nearly two months for crucial diagnostic scans, Lois says she was reaching her breaking point.
“This is for a person that has a very aggressive cancer that turned into something overnight, and I feel that we are just losing time here,” she said.
That backlog is being felt across the Las Vegas community, said Michael’s oncologist, Dr. Rupesh Parikh of Comprehensive Cancer Centers.
“Radiology centers are overwhelmed,” Parikh said. “Whether it be the number of patients or the lack of radiologists, it continues to be a huge problem because without diagnostic tests, we are not able to see what is going on inside of somebody.”