New ultrasound services launched

A brand-new ultrasound machine will help ensure community members can receive the care they need at the Kateri Memorial Hospital Centre (KMHC), eliminating the long wait times faced by those forced to get ultrasounds at nearby hospitals in the absence of services in town.

The new machine was purchased for just under $140,000 using funds from the Kateri Memorial Foundation (KMF) and will allow for a range of ultrasound procedures to take place at the KMHC, including pelvic exams, which physicians have said is a priority in the community.

The service, which is being officially offered from today, will not be able to be used for obstetric ultrasounds except for special cases in the first trimester when there are concerns about the pregnancy.

“Expanding services within Kahnawake has been a vision that we’ve kept before our eyes, and it’s beautiful to see it realized,” said Dr. Rachel Eniojukan, director of professional services at KMHC.

Ultrasounds will be administered by Gabrielle Koerber, who has been hired as KMHC’s new diagnostic medical sonographer. As an autonomous technologist, Koerber is permitted to operate the ultrasound service without a radiologist present, but because KMHC does not have an on-site radiologist, she will be subject to certain requirements.

Those requirements include quotas that must be met. Within a two-year time frame, Koerber must perform a minimum of 600 abdomen ultrasounds, 240 breast ultrasounds, and 240 vascular ultrasounds. If those numbers are not met, Koerber would lose her qualification, and the service would have to be halted.

To meet those targets, ultrasound services will be offered to non-community members, however that will only be done after first clearing the backlog of community members waiting on ultrasound appointments - KMHC’s executive director Valerie Diabo said that there’s a backlog of at least 60 Kahnawa’kehró:non waiting for an ultrasound appointment at Anna Laberge Hospital alone.

She added that KMHC also plans to collaborate with Kahnawake’s sister communities and other Indigenous organizations to ensure that Indigenous clients get priority to use the ultrasound services. After those clients have been seen, the service could be opened to other non-locals on ultrasound waitlists at nearby hospitals.

“We know we have to fill in the gaps at some point, but our priority will always be Kahnawa’kehró:non, that is our number one priority to get ultrasounds done,” she said.

Koerber will be supported by Brittney Giguere, who has been KMHC’s medical imaging coordinator since September 2024.

“With the addition of the ultrasound, (our patients) aren’t going to be waiting on waiting lists at Anna Laberge, they’re not going to have to be put into an ambulance and transported, they can just come down and get their ultrasounds right away,” Giguere said. “I think that’s one of the most important things, continuing the care for our long-term care and short-term care patients, I think it’s going to make a huge impact on treatment for these patients.”

Koerber has a wealth of experience performing ultrasounds, having been trained at Queen’s University and the Eastern Ontario School of X-Ray Technology alongside separate certifications. She’s been working in diagnostic medical prevention since 2010 and has performed thousands of medical imaging procedures at a range of medical institutions.

She said it’s clear that the team has prepared well for the new service.

“You can see all the steps have been very carefully analyzed, very carefully completed to a very high level,” she said. “I can truthfully say this is the nicest hospital I’ve ever been in, it’s very well done.”

She will be able to complete a range of surface ultrasounds including for any lumps, including on legs and arms, as well as vascular scans, liver scans, kidney scans, and more.

The team has coordinated with Anna Laberge, and since that hospital manages pregnancy check-ups, it has been agreed that pregnancy ultrasounds will remain their responsibility, the exception being if there’s an immediate concern with the pregnancy in the first 14 weeks.

Similarly, patients in need of a breast ultrasound will be sent to Anna Laberge if it’s their first time, but follow-up imaging can be undertaken with Koerber.

Other scans that will need to be completed by a radiologist at another hospital include echocardiograms of the heart, joint and muscle scans, and other scans associated with pregnancies.

Diabo emphasized that physicians at KMHC had given feedback to the administration that having pelvic ultrasounds on-site would make an immense difference to community members.

Some community members have faced particularly long wait times for the services at outside hospitals, sometimes as long as two years.

“What we heard from our physicians is that there’s a back wait of those critical ultrasounds that they need done as soon as they can,” she said.

Community members will be referred to the ultrasound service by their KMHC doctor.

“We want to keep our community well,” Diabo said. “That’s our job, to take care of our own.”

[email protected]