Last month, board member Richard Thomson described a 20-month wait for some routine scans as "just dire".
Chief operations officer for Otago Vivian Blake said staff had begun work on a recovery plan, but information on this to go before the hospitals advisory committee this week needed revision.
The delay was the result of the MRI scanner being out of action for five days because of a fault involving " human error", and the impact of the Christchurch earthquake response on radiology ser-vices.
Part of the plan will be ensuring there is consistent referral and prioritisation of patients in both Invercargill and Dunedin, unlike the existing situation where there is considerable variance.
Waits for routine MRI scans have been the highest at 87 weeks, but there were also waits of 20 weeks or more for routine CT and ultrasound scans and musculoskeletal ultrasound scans.
