Thank you, Mr. Chair.
In preparation for this committee, one of the things that came across our desks was a survey by the Canadian Association of Medical Radiation Technologists. I'm going to read some quotes from some of the responses.
The following represent a sample of additional comments on challenges and solutions.... We are experiencing slightly fewer bookings than normal.... ...the impact has been negligible. Things have been better than expected. Suppliers are keeping us informed and to their credit are cooperating to help the industry and subsequently patients. To date our site has been impacted minimally. We report on numbers of patients affected on a weekly basis and to date - no significant impact. Our facility has fared very well during this time of shortages. I think that people are concerned, but not overly so.
And here's one I thought was very good:
We are thinking further into the future than the current shortage.
Those were a few of the remarks of the participants, the medical radiation technologists who participated in the survey they released on October 7. And reading all the comments--and there's other technical stuff--I thought it fit very well with what Dr. McEwan had said about where the situation is now. “Stressed but stable” was the way he termed it.
Judging from these comments, by and large most people are getting what they need. Could you, however, explore the areas where there are more stresses and the areas where there is stability and refer us to anything we could do to help in the short term to support the areas where there are currently more stresses?