Grand Falls leaders upset by private Edmundston cataract clinic

Community leaders in Grand Falls are upset that a cataract surgical suite they raised money for just four years ago may be useless because of a new private clinic opening 40 minutes away in Edmundston.

The private clinic is the latest in a series of cataract clinics that has opened around the province thanks to a new law the Higgs government passed.

It allows some surgeries to happen in private offices outside hospitals while still being funded by Medicare.

The initiative is designed to take pressure off hospital operating rooms and free them up for other procedures.

But in this case, space in Edmundston was already opened up when the surgical suite at the Grand Falls hospital was put in place in 2020, the critics say.

The suite cost $1.3 million and the Friends of the Grand Falls Hospital Foundation contributed $65,000 — making the private clinic a bitter pill.

"We recognize it meets a need, no question, but a significant amount of money was spent by both Vitalité and our foundation to set up the one in Grand Falls, which will be orphaned," said Luc Levesque, president of the foundation.

"It gets a bit frustrating when we put in efforts to raise funds in the community and then see them — I don't want to say squandered — badly used, or used for a very short time."

He said there's anecdotal evidence surgeries were already being cancelled in Grand Falls in anticipation of the private clinic, which opens July 8.

The Vitalité Health Network said in 2020 that the new Grand Falls space would allow all cataract surgeries in northwest New Brunswick to be centralized there, allowing 500 more procedures a year and freeing capacity in Edmundston for other surgeries.

"Surgeons will have greater access to the surgical suite in Edmundston, which will in turn reduce surgical waiting times and give patients better access," then CEO Gilles Lanteigne said at the time.

This week, Vitalité said 1,300 people are on a waiting list for cataract surgery in the northwest, with 100 of them having been on the list for more than a year. 

Vitalité's vice-president of medical affairs Dr. Natalie Banville said this week the private clinic should lead to "a fast decrease of the wait times" for the entire region, like what happened in Bathurst after the opening of a similar clinic there in 2022.

Wait times there were reduced to six to eight weeks, she said.