A private surgical clinic in Victoria will help reduce wait times for day surgeries and colonoscopies.

Surgical Centres Inc. and Island Health hope to have a deal in place by the fall and a new facility open in Victoria by mid-2016 or sooner.

But the clinic won’t help Cowichan residents waiting for operations according to Norm Peters, Island Health’s executive director for surgical services.

“At this time the primary focus of this surgical clinic is going to be on the wait list challenges we have in Victoria,” Peters said.

“We do have some future planning that we are undertaking in the fall with the local leadership around the Cowichan District Hospital.”

The good news for Cowichan, he said, is wait times are relatively short compared to other Island hospitals.

“They are our best performing site right now across the Island,” Peters said. “It could be better. I think we always want to improve and make sure that we’re doing the best that we can but across the Island right now Cowichan is performing quite well in terms of its getting surgeries completed within the clinical benchmarks.”

According to the health authority, the contracted surgical facility will function as an extension of the operating rooms of Island Health’s hospitals, using the health authority’s wait lists and physicians. Island Health will manage the surgical/colonoscopy bookings and all procedures are publicly-funded.