Surgeon here.  I only work in the public system for procedures that the public system actually covers but I can see why others would go into the private system.  I have a moderate waiting list.  I get access to the OR one day a week.  Our hospital's ORs sit empty about 40% of the time because the Ontario government will not pay for nurses/equipment/etc to run them 5 days a week.  

So I can understand why surgeons would want to operate additional days in a private institution rather than continue to have patient care artificially limited by the government in the public system.