Quebec is investing $20 million to make sure hospitals across the province will be able to get more use out of operating rooms.
With 96,000 Quebecers waiting for surgery, many of them waiting more than six months, the Health Minister said this will be a concrete step toward reducing wait times.
The funding announcement comes the week after the Fraser Institute said Quebec had some of the shortest wait times in the country.
The funding will open 18 additional operating rooms at a dozen hospitals to cover the cost of medical equipment and staff.
"It amounts to roughly 22,400 additional surgical procedures to the public year over year, and that's recurrent. Now we have rooms that will be available in the Montreal area - especially in this hospital, the Jewish General Hospital - but also in Sherbrooke, in Gatineau and Quebec City," said Gaetan Barrette.
The MUHC is one of the institutions slated to get additional funding for surgeries but Barrette suggested the MUHC should do a better job of managing its budget.
He praised the Jewish General Hospital for setting an example for other institutions.
"If that hospital can balance its own budget with the complexity of cases it addresses year over year, I think it's a good thing for me to make that announcement here," said Barrette.
Dr. Lawrence Rosenberg, president and CEO of the Jewish General Hospital, said his institution has worked hard at caring for the public.
"We've made a lot of innovative changes in this hospital and the CIUSSS since its inception over the last year and a half, and I think we're finally at a point where we're happy with what we're doing," said Dr. Rosenberg.
"I think we're able to deliver the quality of care and the capacity that the population that comes here requires."
The funding for the province's operating rooms is part of the government's $300 million reinvestment in the healthcare system announced in an economic update last month.
