The ball is in your court Essex County. How badly do you want access to an MRI?

Ontario announced Monday it will pay for the operation of new magnetic resonance imaging scanners in 27 hospitals.

Here’s the catch: each hospital must come up with the money to buy the equipment.

“I would say that we're looking close to $3 million (dollars),” Kristin Kennedy, President and CEO of Erie Shores HealthCare (ESHC) told CTV News Tuesday.

“This (MRI) announcement really sets us up from an operational perspective. It's $800,000 a year annualized to pay for staffing, education, maintenance (and) auxiliary items,” said Kennedy.

ESHC currently does not have an MRI scanner.

“The new MRI will enhance the quality of care for patients, minimize ER (emergency room) wait times and decrease in-patient length of stay,” said Kennedy.

She said the ESHC foundation will launch a campaign in the new year to support the purchase of the scanner as part of the hospitals diagnostic imaging renewal project.

Depending on how that goes, Kennedy predicts the MRI machine could be operational at ESHC “in the next one to two years”.

Kennedy said she is confident the campaign will be a success because of the historical generosity of residents from all corners of Essex County.

“This commitment in our hospital by the provincial government should signal to our community that Erie Shores HealthCare is vital to our region's health care and we will be here for many years to come,” said ESHC board chair Kris Taylor.

“The service that's provided here is the reason that this is coming here,” said Essex County Warden Hilda MacDonald. “The fact that we can come here instead of traveling to Windsor or traveling to Chatham, again is valuable, particularly when people are experiencing (a) health crisis or even health worries.”

“This community hospital is going to get an MRI and the people behind diagnostic whole health, preventative care and wellness will tangibly improve lives in this unique community and well beyond it,” said Chatham-Kent-Leamington MPP Trevor Jones, who was in attendance for Tuesday’s news conference.

Windsor Regional Hospital staff with the hospital's current MRI machine in Windsor, Ont. (Courtesy: WRH)

Windsor Regional Hospital will be getting just under $1 million annual from the province to operate a third MRI scanner.

“We won’t be competing with Erie Shores (for fundraising),” David Musyj said Tuesday after a news conference at WRH's Ouellette campus.

Musyj predicts the machine will cost around $2 million. And while he said their foundation won’t be doing a specific MRI campaign, Musyj said they will find the money for the scanner.

“It's going to happen (even) if no one makes a $1 donation, but our community is always great,” he said.

Musyj noted an MRI scanner at ESHC is a big investment not just for the county but it will help ease wait times at WRH as well.

“For this region that in one day doubles its physical MRI capacity. That's a big announcement because again, the last time this was stated was what 20 years ago?” he said.

Musyj said the current wait time for a non-urgent MRI is six months, with 5,000 tests in the backlog.

He’s hopeful their third scanner will be running in under a year, to start taking a dent out of that list.