Private clinics could help New Brunswick shorten brutal health-care wait times

New Brunswick’s increasing use of private surgical clinics for certain eye procedures has renewed a debate about the province’s health-care system.

Critics of the new clinic in Edmundston claim it will undermine the public system. But both the available data and experience of other jurisdictions suggests change is long overdue.

According to a recent survey, the estimated median wait time for medically-necessary surgical procedures in New Brunswick in 2023 was 52.6 weeks, the third-longest in the country. Of this wait, exactly half was spent waiting for treatment after seeing a specialist (26.3 weeks).

The estimated median wait time for ophthalmology (eye specialist) treatment in the province, which is what the Edmundston clinic provides, was 45.3 weeks and that’s after the lengthy wait for the consultation.

This is clearly a costly problem for New Brunswickers. According to the same study, there were more than 9,600 ophthalmology procedures being waited for in New Brunswick, and a total of 44,240 procedures in the province that year.

Obviously, wait times can cause serious health problems. But they can also cost patients money. A recent study estimated that wait times are costing New Brunswickers more than $200 million in lost wages, or $4,800 per patient.

The province must do things differently, and when we look abroad its clear that private-sector involvement in universal health care is a normal feature around the world. Many countries perform better than Canada on key health-care metrics and use the private sector in their universal systems.

To that end, the Higgs government has an opportunity to emulate a successful wait time reduction initiative that occurred right here in Canada. The Saskatchewan Surgical Initiative, which took place between 2010 and 2014, increased surgical capacity in that province by contracting with private clinics while maintaining publicly funded access to care. The province saw a 75 per cent reduction in the number of patients waiting more than three months for surgery, and went from having one of the longest wait times in 2010 to one of shortest by 2014. Unfortunately, when the initiative ended, wait times began to grow again.

New Brunswickers wait a long time for medically necessary care, and incur substantial costs in the process. The evidence shows that province’s move toward more private clinics within the public system could be an important step toward reducing the province’s crushing wait times.