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Health Minister Kevin Falcon says the province's landmark embrace of patient-focused funding could see private clinics competing with hospitals to provide publicly funded surgeries.

"If [private clinics]decide they want to [try for this business] they would have the same opportunity to do so as public hospitals," Mr. Falcon said.

"I think they will continue to be a pretty small piece of the pie. We don't anticipate much of a change, but yes, they will have that chance [to compete]"

The confirmation was welcomed Wednesday by Mark Godley, medical director of the for-profit False Creek Surgical Centre.

"If it happens in a big way, we could really ramp up our services," said Dr. Godley. "We've got room here to expand. I could even see us becoming a full-fledged private hospital."

Brian Day, founder of the privately owned Cambie Surgery Centre and an outspoken proponent of more private-sector involvement in Canada's health-care system, was more cautious, but agreed the move was a good one.

"Obviously, we would like to see the system opened up. We'd like to compete," Dr. Day said.

"It's good for both us and public hospitals to have competition. And it's good for patients. It gives them more choice. It empowers them. The private sector is a viable part of the health-care system in every other country but Canada."

But the former president of the Canadian Medical Association said his clinic intends to adopt a wait-and-see approach to the possibility of new government business under patient-focused funding.

"We've learned over the years you can never rely on government. You don't base future plans on anything that's a hot political issue," Dr. Day said.

"You have to be conservative. Governments change their minds."

Any move to increase the role of private clinics would be sure to draw the ire of health-care unions and those opposed to for-profit medicine.

Indeed, B.C. Nurses president Debra McPherson was quick to condemn Mr. Falcon's support for patient-focused funding.

Introducing the system is a prelude "to handing off more public dollars to private for-profit clinics, instead of investing funds on improvements in public health-care facilities," Ms. McPherson charged in a statement.

"It's no accident here in B.C. that this concept of 'money following the patient' has been the hobby horse of Brian Day."

Both Mr. Falcon and Premier Gordon Campbell have mused in the past about boosting private-sector participation in health care, as long as procedures are funded through medicare, rather than giving patients a chance to buy their way to the head of the queue.

Under patient-focused funding, health-care institutions will receive money based on the number and quality of procedures they perform at a competitive, set price.

That is a change from the long-standing current system, known as block funding, under which hospitals receive large grants from the government, without specifying how the money should be spent.

By 2012-13, the province hopes to have about 20 per cent of eligible acute-care spending focused directly on specific patient procedures, a system widely practised in Europe but a first for Canada.

Currently, less than 3 per cent of the 475,000 publicly funded surgeries performed every year in B.C. are contracted out to private facilities.

For the first two years, patient-focused funding will be confined to 23 major B.C. hospitals. After that, if all goes well, the process will be expanded to other institutions. Private surgical clinics are to be included in the mix.

But Mr. Falcon said he did not envision a sudden, dramatic shift to for-profit facilities, pointing out their capacity remains small, compared to large public hospitals.

"We already use them in a small way, so this would be nothing new. There's a lot of hysteria out there about this issue, but the reality is that private clinics do not have a major role in our system," Mr. Falcon said. "That is unlikely to change."

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