Independent MHA Paul Lane is joining with Eddie Joyce in calling on the provincial government to address a significant backlog in cataract surgery.

Lane says he knows of a woman in her seventies in the Eastern Health region with severe cataracts who is the primary caregiver for her husband, who is a cancer patient.

He says the woman has been told that she will have to wait a year and a half to get her surgery, but can get the surgery next week if she is willing to pay the $3,200 dollar cost per eye.

That, says Lane, is not how the universal healthcare system is supposed to work.

He says the capacity is there, with the ability to perform the life-changing procedures, but government is only willing to support so much each year.