Riverside to receive transitional funding

Riverside Health Care Facilities Inc. will be receiving more than $600,000 from the provincial government to help balance its budget and improve operations.
The province announced the $200 million in transitional funding last week, with different amounts going to hospitals depending on their ability to improve efficiency and balance budgets.
“Our government has asked hospitals to change the way they operate, to reduce their spending on administration and to focus more spending on direct patient care,” said Health and Long-Term Care minister George Smitherman.
“We are going to help them with the upfront costs of making these important changes,” he added.
Riverside was listed among small rural hospitals that have small operating bases from which to find efficiencies. These are hospitals that have small base budgets and lack viable alternatives in the community which makes integration difficult.
Riverside will receive $679,800 in the one-time funding.
Other Northwestern Ontario hospitals that fall in the small rural category include Atikokan General ($131,400), Dryden Regional Health Centre ($413,500), Margaret Cochenour Memorial in Red Lake ($137,500), and Meno-Ya-Win Health Centre in Sioux Lookout ($426,600).
Lake of the Woods hospital in Kenora was listed among hospitals that do not yet have balanced budgets but which are working to become more efficient.
The hospital there will receive $373,000.
Out of 31 hospitals dubbed “pace-setters,” whose budgets are balanced, only one was located in Northwestern Ontario: St. Joseph’s General in Thunder Bay ($49,800).
The McGuinty government launched an 18-month plan in October for hospitals to have their budgets balanced by March 31, 2006. So far, the government said 73 hospitals will meet the deadline.
The $200-million transitional funding is meant to help more hospitals reach that goal. Included in that is $91 million to cover severance costs.
The health ministry said Ontario hospitals have identified $174 million in savings in 2004/05 through measures such as reducing administrative, nursing, and non-nursing clinical full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs by reducing overtime, sick time, casual employment, as well as early retirement, attrition, and direct layoffs.
Hospitals have begun sharing services, including payroll and laundry, across different sites, have moved some non-acute services into the community, and have curbed spending on management and administration.