The Sydenham District Hospital board approved the CKHA/SDH financial statements, up until March 2016, on Thursday, June 16.
The statement showed an overall deficit for the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance of $3.6 million, and a $596,311 deficit for the Sydenham Campus.
Sarah Padfield, the chief financial officer for the CKHA, provided a presentation to the SDH board on Thursday about the statements.
“We certainly had cash flow pressure this year as a result of our reduced Ministry of Health funding that we experienced,” she said.
“As well we had a number of capital expenditures, including $1.5 million for new infusion pumps, $100,000 patient monitoring system for (the Sydenham) campus, ventilators at about $80,000 and other capital improvements. So that has put a fair bit of pressure on cash.”
Padfield said to offset this, they were forced to use their “line of credit.”
“If you look at liabilities, you’ll see a $1.1 million bank indebtedness note,” she said.
“We haven’t had that in the past. That’s essentially our line of credit, so we were into our line of credit by March 31 by about $1.1 million. Cash balances at the end of the year, the line of credit is drawn that way. That is the presentation format that is most appropriate for the end of this fiscal year.”
Padfield said the revenues for the Alliance from the Ministry of Health went from $116 million in 2015 and to $118 million in 2016.
“Two major things happening there, one is a reduction of about $1.5 million in Ministry directed funding for hospital operations,” she said.
“However, through this fiscal period we also saw an increase in about $2.8 million in either one-time money, special initiative money or prior year settlements.”
The SDH board moved into closed session to discuss the report on Thursday, before moving back into open session and approving the report.
The financial statements are set to be presented next week to the members of the SDH Corporation, during their annual general meeting.
The AGM will be held at the UAW Hall in Wallaceburg on Thursday, June 23 at 5 p.m.
