The provincial government is just starting the dialogue in Ontario on that with cataract surgery and endoscopy.
But not only do we believe it's cost-effective, we believe we can deliver it more efficiently, that we can shorten the wait times substantially.
As Dr. Sutherland mentioned, when you have specific funded procedures for wait times such as cancer operations, hip replacements, cataracts, what happens is there's a collateral effect on other procedures, such as hernias and gallbladder surgery. Now they essentially, practically speaking, get bumped back, so we're getting phone calls at Lakeview Surgery Centre from patients who are getting agonizing pain, gallbladder attacks. They can't always access the hospital in a timely fashion, and while we would love to bring them in, we have the facility, we're qualified to do them, we're not funded.
But we can shorten our wait times very significantly and save the federal and provincial governments a substantial amount of money.
I believe the health care model in the future is to keep the Canada Health Act intact but deliver outpatient surgery care, such as general surgery, gallbladder, hernia, thyroid surgery, in and out of a hospital facility. You'll shorten wait times and you'll save the government substantial money.