A new state-of-the-art surgical centre has opened on the east side of Windsor, which is expected to serve thousands of eye surgery patients every year.
The Windsor Surgical Centre is located at 10700 Tecumseh Road East.
The partnership between Windsor Surgical Centre and Windsor Regional Hospital will also free up hospital resources for more complex cases in other surgical specialties.
The facility is equipped with four operating rooms, 15 pre- and post-operative bays and a dedicated Laser Room where cataract and retina procedures will be held.
Previously, eye surgeries were performed in the basement level of Windsor Regional Hospital Ouellette Campus, before moving to Windsor Regional Hospital on Walker Road.
Dr. Barry Emara, Lead Ophthalmologist for Vision Care Strategy Ontario Health and Co-Owner of Windsor Surgical Centre, says this facility and initiative will be transformative in the way eye surgery and vision care is delivered in the region.
He's hoping this new centre will bring more ophthalmologists to the region to better serve the community.
"A facility like this just opens up all kinds of possibilities in terms of just recruiting more ophthalmologists, which we desperately need to the area," he continued. "And also other various sub-specialties in ophthalmology, so the patients benefit hugely from that."
Dr. Emara says this new facility is at a great location for residents.
"Now it's a comfortable setting for them to come and have their surgery done. We tried to make it as comfortable as we could, but you're limited when you're in that basement of a hospital. So far, the reviews have been amazing in terms of how the patients and their families feel coming to a surgical centre like this," he said.
He adds that he's expecting the facility to be able to complete thousands more operations a year.
"Now we have more than one operating room, that was kind of the limiting factor. We can have more than one surgeon work on a single day, so you can imagine that basically doubles the capacity that you can put through in terms of cases. So, we were at about 4,500 cases per year, now we have the ability probably to go up to even 10,000."
Dr. Emara says it was crucial for them to expand to a better equip facility.
"We wanted to give them the best possible experience they could have in a setting that would be comfortable to them. And now we also have the ability to offer more operating rooms and more advanced technology that comes with a facility like this," he said.
The facility has been open for roughly two months and between 1,000 to 1,500 surgeries have already occurred in the space.
-with files from AM800's Aaron Mahoney