The head of Windsor Regional Hospital is touting the success of private clinic cataract surgeries in reducing the hospital surgical wait list.
David Musyj, President and CEO of Windsor Regional Hospital, says the Windsor Surgical Centre was launched at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic when it became impossible to perform cataract procedures in the hospital.
"If it did not start in 2020, we would have an impossible wait time upon us for cataracts. As a result, the current wait time and wait list for cataracts in Windsor-Essex is with provincial guidelines and continues to improve," he says.
The Windsor Surgical Centre is mainly focused on cataracts and is set to complete some 6,000 eyes this year.
Just under 400 patients are currently waiting for a surgical date, around a three month wait, which according the hospital is below the provincial standard.
The province announced Tuesday a plan to expand the private delivery of public health care, by funding procedures such as more cataract surgeries and MRI and CT scans, procedures that will continue to be paid for by the Ontario Health Insurance Plan or OHIP.
Health Minister Sylvia Jones says the first stage of the new plan is to add 14,000 cataract surgeries through "new partnerships" at centres in Windsor, Kitchener-Waterloo and Ottawa.
The Windsor Surgical Centre, a joint effort with Windsor Regional Hospital, has been operating as a private clinic since 2020.
Dr. Barry Emara and Dr. Fouad Tayfour, the hospital’s chief of ophthalmology, now co-own a 12,000-square-foot state-of-the-art facility located at 10700 Tecumseh Rd. E., which features four operating theatres.
Musyj says it's the same physicians and same standards as being in the hospital.
"From a patient's perspective, it is the same procedure that occurred previously in the hospital but is no occurring in the Windsor Surgical Centre. There is no different changes to the patient that would have occurred in the hospital. Actually, I take that back, parking at the Windsor Surgical Centre is free," he says.
Dr. Fouad Tayfour says there are some procedures that have no reason to be done in the hospital, occupying space and making the staff busy.
"Really the pandemic opened our eyes to what we are short of," he says. "Any procedure can be done out of the hospital, it will relieve the pressure from the hospital so the hospital can do what needs to be done, taking care of sick patients."
Dr. Wassim Saad, Chief of Staff of Windsor Regional Hospital, says what's happened in the past 15 to 20 years is hospitals are being inundated with lower acuity patients that don't necessarily need to be in the hospital.
"This is the first of what I hope is of many steps to create a bridge between low acuity community care and high acuity hospital care. Divert some of those procedures and diagnostic tests, and other things to the community where they can easily and safely be done and offload the stress to the hospital," he says.
The province is putting $18 million in existing centres across the province for MRI and CT scans, cataract surgeries, other ophthalmic surgeries, certain gynecological surgeries and plastic surgeries.
Other steps in the plan are set to include expanding the scope of private surgical and diagnostic centres, including more colonoscopy and endoscopy procedures, and in 2024, expanding surgeries at clinics for hip and knee replacements.