Outpatient medical screening sessions at Mater Dei Hospital will be extended into the evenings to ease waiting lists, Health Minister Godfrey Farrugia said.

Addressing the third annual medical imaging seminar earlier this morning, Dr Farrugia said that last year early hour sessions had taken 800 patients off the waiting lists.

“Yes, we get comments from people because of the strange hours but then they received the scans they needed and the waiting lists were reduced substantially,” he said.

Dr Farrugia said that last year 139,500 scans were carried out. This, he said, marked an increase of 400 over 2012.

The high demand had inadvertently resulted in bottlenecks, with the MRI waiting list having reached capacity by March.

Dr Farrugia said he would be combating this by utilising resources in the Gozo hospital.

“Why not send patients to the Gozo hospital for scans, if they can be done sooner?” he said.

Last year 800 patients were sent to Gozo for scans.

Dr Farrugua also announced the purchase of a number of new digital X-Rays machines, MRIs and two new linear accelerators to be used in the new oncology centre.

This, he said, would be accompanied by an increase in human resources. Dr Farrugia said reshuffling of courses would see six new radiographers this year, and an increase in the number of students accepted into diagnostics and radiography courses.