Renous’s Dale Hallihan was the first patient to receive cataract surgery at the recently opened Miramichi Cataract Surgical Center in Miramichi.
“It’s excellent, it’s good… It was just so fast,” she said in an interview on Monday.
Horizon Health Network’s interim president and CEO Margaret Melanson said the new clinic would relieve pressure on surgery wait-lists.
“By partnering with the Miramichi Surgical Cataract Center, we are tripling the number of cataract surgeries being completed on a weekly basis in this region,” she said at a press conference.
The pilot project operates in a similar fashion to a family doctor’s office.
Dr. Nir Shoham-Hazon owns the clinic and serves as medical director in collaboration with Horizon Health Network.
The doctors in the clinic work on a fee-for-service model, billing the province for their services.
All services are covered by Medicare.
The first doctor-owned cataract clinic was opened in the fall of 2022 in Bathurst.
Health Minister Bruce Fitch said the program had been expanded to Miramichi because the government has “seen the results in Bathurst where the wait time has been reduced by 67 per cent,” noting that New Brunswick’s aging population has a high demand for cataract surgeries.
Fitch denied the characterization of both of these clinics as being private, telling reporters in French that patients “would be paying with a Medicare card and not a credit card” at a press conference.
He declined to confirm whether additional clinics in the same vein would open elsewhere in the province.
The centre has the capacity to perform up to 2,500 cataract surgeries annually, which Horizon representatives will hope free up operating space at the Miramichi Regional Hospital.
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