A group of First Nations in the Yukon wants to bring a medical diagnostic centre to Whitehorse, with the help of technology company Siemens Canada Ltd.

The First Nation-run diagnostic centre would offer MRI screening and other medical services. Siemens, which manufactures MRI machines and other health-care equipment, is offering to provide the infrastructure for such a facility.

Officials with Siemens are scheduled to meet next month with Albert Rock, a Yukon businessman who is helping the First Nations to bring the centre to the territory.

"We're working with him, and we're informing him of what the template looks like and what the process looks like," said Frank Suraci, director of aboriginal affairs with Siemens Canada.

Suraci added that the diagnostic centres are not private clinics, and are meant to complement public health-care services. Siemens is working with six aboriginal groups across the country to build similar facilities.

"It's a huge thing for Canada, but it will take a long time to get here," Rock said in an interview.

"I'm just trying to do the shortcut and get it here while they're still building there. That's what I'm after."

In February, the Kawacatoose First Nation in Saskatchewan announced plans to team up with Siemens and build a $10-million health centre in Regina.

The Regina centre is projected to open in 2009 if the provincial government there gives it the go-ahead. Like the proposed Yukon facility, it will also provide MRI screening services, as well as a pharmacy, an optician, podiatrist and dentist.

Meanwhile, the Waycobah First Nation in Nova Scotia is in talks with Siemens to do the same thing. Waycobah Chief Morley Googoo told CBC News that the centre would aim to address mortality rates on his First Nation.

"Based on our quick survey last year, the last 50 deaths, the average age was 33, and the last 100 deaths ... the average age was 54," Googoo said. "That went all the way through from heart attacks to strokes to some accidents."