MANITOULIN—Manitoulin Health Centre (MHC) has received its funding allocation from the province, which shows an increase in base funding and one-time funding allocations. However, wage arbitration awards from Bill 124 are currently only funded for part of the year, currently.
“At this point the announcement is not good or bad,” said Eric Theriault, vice-president corporate support service and chief financial officer of MHC. “It’s better at this time of the year versus the prior year, with the hospital deficit projected to be significantly lower. But we only have half the story thus far.”
Mr. Theriault explained, “We have received new base funding from the province in the amount of $1,553,300 and one-time funding of $1,363,400, for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2025. The base funding includes an across the board increase for small hospitals, small and northern hospitals stabilization funds and wage arbitration awards from April 2024 to September 2024 only.”
“The current messaging we are getting is that the government is planning on funding the second part of the year, however a reconciliation process must first be completed by all hospitals. This is similar to the process from last November,” said Mr. Theriault. As of last November, the majority of union arbitrations were completed, however a few remained in negotiations. Those unions were not included in the reconciliation process.
“The government has requested hospitals complete their reconciliation process in August,” said Mr. Theriault. “What this means for hospitals is that we have to ensure all the data is current and of the highest quality.” It is assumed that this is the rationale being used by the province for not funding the arbitration awards in full at this point.
“The last time our hospital received 85 percent of our actual costs (some hospitals received even less, in some cases only 70 percent),” said Mr. Theriault.
“There are still a couple of areas of potential funding that we will be applying to that could make our hospital relatively whole if this funding comes to fruition,” said Mr. Theriault. “At this point we are not at a balanced position.” He explained late last fiscal year ‘pressures funding’ was provided to some hospitals, including MHC to reduce deficits.
“We still have financial challenges, but there is some commitment from the government to provide additional funding. There have been numerous back and forths with the government and healthcare advocacy leaders,” said Mr. Theriault. “At this point we are still looking at an overall deficit for the current fiscal year and have limited knowledge on future commitment of funding from the province. They have asked hospitals to resubmit their budgets to the province. It’s all a little grey at this point.”
“We are appreciative of the additional funding thus far and are optimistic everything that they have said in terms of funding being provided will come to fruition. We are currently showing a deficit, however not nearly as much as the previous fiscal year,” said Mr. Theriault.
