Earlier in the week, Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced a plan to clear a massive surgical backlog that included funding for four private clinics, including one in Waterloo, to provide cataract surgeries.
The four clinics, including TLC Laser Eye Centres in Waterloo, have signed on to do as many as 14,000 cataract surgeries per year as the province currently has more than 206,000 people on a wait-list for the procedure.
A spokesperson for the Ford government told Global News that the Kitchener-Waterloo area was selected because it has a longer list of people waiting for the procedure than many other areas.
Dr. Mark Cohen, the managing partner for Vision Group Canada, which operates the centre in Waterloo, says they have plenty of space in their clinic to help alleviate the backlog.
He said the clinic has the ability to provide as many as 20 to 25 cataract surgeries per day.
“It’s a very quick procedure. And actually today, a lot of patients choose to have both eyes done at the same time,” Cohen said.
“The easiest, perhaps, of all the procedures would be cataract surgery to outsource that out of a hospital.”
He noted that the procedure once required a hospital room but that is no longer the case.
“If you look outside of Canada and the rest of the developed world, whether it’s Europe or Australia or Japan or, of course, the United States, the vast majority of cataract surgeries are not performed in a general hospital,” he said.
“Cataract surgery, something that takes about five to 10 minutes per eye and is performed just with drops in the eye similar to laser vision correction. So it’s not something that really requires a hospital setting.”
Critics are concerned that the increase in private care will lead to these types of facilities poaching from area hospitals but Cohen says that will not be the case.
“Across the country, we have not been hiring any nurses from from hospitals,” he explained, noting that in some cases that was part of the agreement with governments.
“It’s not necessary to use nursing personnel for such procedures. We do in many jurisdictions do that,” Cohen said. “But if there’s a shortage of nurses in a particular area, we’re not going to be pulling nurses away from the hospital where they may be more needed to staff ICUs or emergency rooms or floors and so forth.”
Cohen reiterated what the premier said on Monday in noting that OHIP will be paying for all cataract procedures but critics also voiced concerns about patients being upsold other procedures when they go in for a cataract surgery.
Cohen said Vision Care’s facilities have done 50,000 publicly paid surgeries across the country and are not allowed to upcharge anyone, although he noted that people can pay for upgrades through their doctor, which would allow them to get rid of glasses.
“If in the discussion with the physician, the patient chooses to have one of these lenses that help them get rid of glasses … then there’s a charge for the lens,” he explained. “That’s a standard fee provincewide. It’ll be the same fee in the hospital or with it with a private facility.
“That’s really between the doctor and his patients.”
He noted that the number of cataract procedures needed in Canada is not going to drop any time soon.
“There’s almost half a million cataract procedures performed a year in Canada, and everyone eventually gets a cataract and you get two because you have two eyes,” Cohen said.
“Everyone gets a cataract if they live long enough. The average age is around 70 years old. But you know, the population is aging, so it’s becoming increasingly common to have cataract surgery.”
— with files from Global News’ Matt Carty and The Canadian Press