Demand for services drives budget deficit

For the second year in a row Quinte Health will end its fiscal year with a deficit.

On Tuesday, the board of directors heard that the deficit will be around $9 million, up from $6.6 million in 2023/24.

The deficit’s cause is a steady increase in demand for hospital services forcing local hospitals to operate and staff more medical beds than the provincial government funds.  Quinte Health President Stacey Daub says along with asking the province for more funding, the organization is working with partners on ways to provide care in patients’ homes and in other settings.

Daub adds that too many people are now in hospital who would be better served in long-term care homes.

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“So on a given day we have relatively high numbers here.  We are very hopeful that with the new long-term care (facility) coming on board it will make a discernible difference and free an opportunity for us to be able to operate beds more in alignment with what our funding levels are.”

In May local hospitals saw an average of 212 inpatients per day, up from 202 in May of last year.

Over the past five years there has been a 13% increase in emergency department weighted cases, a 46% increase in inpatient medicine bed days, a 26% increase in surgical weighted cases, a 53% increase in elective quality-based procedures, and a 38% increase in cancer care services.

The increase in demand for hospital services stems from a combination of things including a growing and older population with more chronic illness, and the shortage of family physicians and outside clinics in the area.