St. Joseph’s Hospital CEO Greg Hoffort said the recent provincial budget didn’t have a lot that will have a large impact on the hospital’s operations.
The budget was released on April 10. Hoffort described it as a status quo budget, since there was just a small increase in funding.
“There were the announcements for the autism funding, the HIV funding and mental health funding that are good news and very important issues that we don’t deal with at St. Joe’s, but from a health-care perspective in general, it’s good to hear,” said Hoffort.
The mental health services, for example, are offered by the hospital, but they are operated by the Saskatchewan Health Authority.
Healthcare received $5.36 billion in the budget, which represents a 2.9 per cent increase. The Saskatchewan Health Authority, which was formed last year through an amalgamation of the province’s health regions, will receive $3.5 billion.
Hoffort hopes the funding increase for health means the hospital avoided a cut in funding.
“I don’t know that I would call it good news, but we maybe avoided bad news, for lack of a better explanation,” said Hoffort. “It’s tough economic times in the province, and we didn’t expect a great deal, but it’s something we will be reviewing over the next couple of weeks over how it exactly affects us.”
There was a mention of $49 million to the provincial health system for recruiting specialists and primary care physicians. He’s not sure if it would relate directly to St. Joseph’s.
“We’re in the process of exploring it to see if there’s any way we can get our hands on some of that funding,” said Hoffort.
There was some speculation that there might be further cuts coming, but it’s tough to get excited about a cut in spending.
There won’t be money for such expenses as roof repairs and other upgrades. The hospital had much of its roof replaced last year.
The hospital also receives an allotment of capital funding from the ministry, but the hospital hasn’t heard if that’s been impacted.
Hoffort was hoping to see a mention in the budget for the new regional nursing home in Estevan, but it wasn’t included. Hoffort said the new nursing home committee is eager to move the project forward, but it doesn’t seem like anything will be happening for now.
The hospital will do anything it can to support the new nursing home committee, he said.
