Island Health has purchased private surgical centres in Greater Victoria and Nanaimo to increase the annual number of surgeries and endoscopies available to Vancouver Island residents.
The Ministry of Health announced that Island Health has purchased the View Royal Surgical Centre on the South Island and the Seafield Surgical Centre in Nanaimo for $11.5 million and will transition them to Island Health facilities that offer a broader range of services.
Island Health was already contracting two operating rooms and two endoscopy suites at the View Royal private clinic for public services.
Also adds day procedures like cataract sugery, vascular, paediatric dental, orthopedics and plastic surgeries to system.— Rob Shaw (@RobShaw_BC) April 28, 2022
Health Minister Adrian Dix said in a news release that the move will add 2,300 surgeries and 2,300 endoscopies per year on Vancouver Island. The surgical centre in View Royal currently delivers 2,500 day-care surgeries and 4,000 outpatient procedures per year, while Seafield Surgical Centre in Nanaimo delivers around 2,700 procedures per year.
“Our government is committed to delivering surgical care for British Columbians when they need it, including recovering from the surgical impacts of the pandemic, and bringing these centres on as Island Health facilities will help all of us achieve this goal,” said Dix.
Island Health will be able to expand access to procedures at the two facilities “through greater use of unused and underutilized capacity at these sites,” instead of investing new money in services at hospitals, the ministry said.
Both facilities already offer “low-complexity” procedures including plastic, orthopedic, urology, vascular, pediatric dental, endoscopies and cataract surgeries requiring stays of less than 24 hours.
The transition of the centres from Surgical Centres Inc., which owns both facilities, to Island Health will be completed over the next few months “with an immediate focus on stabilizing current operations during and after the transition period,” the ministry said.
Last month, the B.C. government said it was turning its attention to rebooking thousands of non-urgent elective surgeries like hip-and-knee replacements and cataract surgeries that were put off during the Omicron wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dix said that on Vancouver Island there are disproportionately more surgeries performed on Vancouver Island due to its older population.
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