Grey Bruce Health Services finished the 2009-10 fiscal year with a small surplus — but further financial challenges lie ahead for the hospital corporation.
The last fiscal year ended on March 31st and the small surplus was a dramatic turnaround from a projection last May of a 1.7 million dollar deficit.
President and CEO Maureen Solecki credits the establishment last year of a savings plan with that turnaround.
She notes that plan depended on managers and staff coming up with ideas to find efficiencies in the operation.
More than 100 different measures were implemented.
But Solecki says they must find more efficiencies so they can be able to stay ahead of the game since hospitals are prohibited from running a deficit.
Solecki says another challenge is a base funding increase from the province of only 1.5 per cent for 2010-11.
This base funding represents about 70 per cent of the corporation’s revenue, and the increase is only half the rate of inflation in the province’s health care sector.
Work is progressing now on a financial submission that GBHS will make in August to the South West Local Health Integration Network.
