A new surgical center opening in Saskatoon is expected to take some pressure off wait times for some day surgeries in the health region.

Prairie View Surgical Centre is set up to take over 7,000 surgery referrals a year from Saskatoon hospitals. The centre is owned by an Alberta-based private healthcare company called Surgical Centres Inc. which already runs four clinics in Alberta and B.C.. A new surgical clinic set to open in Regina was delayed earlier this week.

The Saskatoon centre  has 7 operating rooms for certain types of procedures which should free up hospitals for more complicated surgeries.

The center's chief operating officer Fatima Fazal explained that they have already started taking patients for pediatric dentistry. The Alberta-based company is also approved to take referrals in orthopedics and opthamology.

“We will be doing knees, shoulders, ACLs – those types of procedures under the orthopedic service and then we will be doing opthamology so eye surgery, in April,” she explained. “The way the region has approached it is very much in a phase-like manner.”

Fazal also noted that the center will only take referrals from the hospitals and it is not there to have people "jump the queue" of surgical waitlists.

The private clinic is able to do these surgeries cheaper so the move is expected to save the health region about $2 million per year. Their hope is that this will help the province reach the goal to reduce wait times to three months by 2014.

For more information on the Surgical Centres Inc company check their website.

Edited by News Talk Radio’s Adriana Christianson