Island Health partners with private contractor to reduce surgical wait times

Wait times for surgeries on Vancouver Island could be significantly reduced if the region's health authority moves ahead with contracting operating room space from a Calgary-based private surgical provider.

According to Interior Health, this third-party clinic could allow for up to 55,000 day surgeries over a five-year period.

Norm Peters, executive director for surgical services at Island Health, told All Points West host Robyn Burns that they are weeks away from finalizing a deal with Surgical Centres Inc.

"We have a growing population in Canada, and B.C., and Vancouver Island in particular," he said.

"We're just responding to what we've seen is growing demand."

Focus on day surgeries

Peters stressed that the health authority is only contracting out the space — and that all surgeries would be done by Island Health staff.

'We would treat those additional operating rooms like our own operating rooms," he said.

"We would be doing the booking for the cases. We would be assigning the operating room time to the various surgical divisions and their surgeons would be going there to perform the cases, as well as the Island Health anesthesiologist."

Island Health is negotiating this contract with Surgical Centres Inc. after the health authority issued a request for proposals in April.

The RFP said the authority was looking for a surgical services partner to perform between 3,000 and 4,000 day surgeries per year over a five-year contract term, as well as up to 4,000 colonoscopy procedures on the southern part of the Island and up to 3,000 on the central part of the Island.

"The primary focus of the clinic is going to be on day care procedures, so those are cases where you would come to either Vancouver General or Royal Jubilee and the case would be done during the day and you would be discharged home."

Not a move to privatization

Peters said surgery wait times have exceeded the average benchmark of 26 weeks, and hopes this move will allow the authority to improve.

"By moving day cases from the hospital to the surgery clinic, we can then use that operating room time to provide those more complicated procedures, such as total-joint replacement, and improve our wait times for people waiting for total joints."

Responding to criticism about surgeons leaving the public system to work at a private company, Peters said he is not concerned.

"The surgeons are not actually leaving the public system. They will still continue to be credentialed and privileged to perform surgeries at Island Health, and that's a requirement to go work at the surgery clinic," he said.

"We will use the wait list to manage access to this space. People will not jump the queue and pay privately like you would see in the United States. So this is actually a continuation of the public system by using a third-party to provide operating room space."

Peters said the location of the clinic is still being finalized, and said the hope is that it will open in spring 2016.

To hear the full interview click on the audio labelled: Vancouver Island health authority to contract out operating room space