Hospital chairman concerned about deficit

Provincial funding received last week may not be enough for the North Bay General Hospital to continue its current level of service, board chairman Barry Bertrand says.

The Ministry of Health and Long Term Care announced it would give the hospital $686,200 as part of a $469.5 million funding injection across Ontario.

But, Bertrand said, the local contribution is only a one per cent increase of the hospital’s total costs, while it actually needed six per cent to maintain the status quo.

“We are very concerned about the hospital’s ability to sustain its current operations at this level of funding,” Bertrand said.

Health Ministry spokesman Dan Strasbourg says the ministry is always available "to work with the hospital to help them identify ways to operate more efficiently while maintainting levels of care patients are accustomed to."

Strasbourg said finding efficiencies is a "very good" way of reducing the size of a deficit.

One building
The hospital ended its 2003-2004 fiscal year $4.7 million in the red, Bertrand said, and, without benchmarking, is predicting a 2004-2005 deficit of $13.5 million.

While the hospital believes running two sites has made its operations costs higher than its peers, Bertrand said the General doesn’t want to carry a deficit over to the new facility, nor would the MOH allow this to happen; a post-construction operating plan and budget show moving into one building will save $5 to $7 million annually.

In order to determine if efficiencies could be achieved sooner, a benchmarking process for the NBGH was recently undertaken, Bertrand said, that includes a comparison financial and operational data with similar hospitals in the province.

“This process helped to determine areas for improved service delivery and reduced costs at the current NBGH sites without affecting patient programs and services and with minimal impact on staff,” Bertrand said.

Doesn’t make sense
Provincial Bill 8, he added, requires hospital boards and CEOs to sign an agreement with the government to provide agreed-upon volumes of patient services within a specified amount of money.

“Our concern with the recent funding announcement and the new Bill 8 legislation is that our hospital will not be able to continue to offer the same level of service and stay within the specified money allotted to the hospital by the Ministry,” Bertrand said.

“It’s kind of mind-boggling. Here we getting ready to build a bigger, more efficient hospital where we are working towards increased services and staff, and in the meantime we are being forced to look at cutbacks. It just doesn’t make sense.”

Will increase
The hospital’s patient volumes, Bertrand said, indicate the hospital can’t afford to cut services because waiting times will increase.

“As well, if we do have to cut services we run the risk of losing professional staff who will relocate to other communities at a time when we see expansion of services in the new hospital and an increased number of staff,” Bertrand said.

Once the new hospital is built it will contain 275 beds, 71 more than the current facilities hold.

The additional beds are being allocated mostly to rehabilitation, complex continuing care and acute mental health.