Rainy River hospital funding in limbo

Why would the Ministry of Health agree to build a new hospital with extra long-term care beds and not provide enough funding to fill it with patients?
That’s the question baffling both Rainy River residents and Riverside Health Care Facilities Inc. here.
Riverside CEO Wayne Woods said they have “pretty good documentation” which states the Ministry of Health was going to provide an extra $350,000 above its global budget to bring the number of long-term care beds in the new Rainy River hospital to 21 while reducing the acute care ones to three.
But now that the new hospital is built, the ministry seems reluctant to release those funds and patient transfers have been delayed.
“I’m at a loss because every piece of documentation I’ve sent [to the ministry] substantiates they owe us $350,000,” Woods said. “And it would appear now since there’s been many changes that that money may not be forthcoming.”
The cost for running the new hospital with its long-term care beds is about $1.5 million, Woods said. He can’t understand why there has been such a big delay in transferring the extra funds to the new hospital.
“The commitment was there from the ministry,” he said, noting he’s been on the phone at least once every day trying to get them “the right piece of paper” to show the money was promised.
“I have assurances we will get there,” he said. “It’s just a matter of when.”
Pat Giles, who chairs Riverside’s board of directors, said it was his understanding the matter should be settled this week, noting the problem seems to lie in the bureaucracy between the Ministry of Health’s Institutional and Long-Term Health divisions.
But he did say the board and community were a bit “annoyed” that it’s taking so long to get the funding in place.
“There’s certainly rumours of anxiety [in town],” Giles admitted. “People are wondering why.”
Meanwhile, Rainy River Hospital won’t be sitting empty for long. Woods said Riverside simply cannot delay the transfer of patients there any longer.
“It’s not the community’s fault and it’s not the patients’ fault, and people are eager to get in there,” he stressed.
The hospital already houses five chronic care patients, who officially will be transferred to long-term care early this month. Then starting around June 15, the hospital will take in about four new patients a week, filling all the beds sometime by mid-July.
“We’ll try and sort this [funding] mess out as we go along,” Woods said. “It could mean quite possibly that we’d be running a deficit for a while until it is.”
No one from the Ministry of Health could be reached for comment as of press time today.