Eastern Health runs $46.1M deficit in 2015-16

Eastern Health ran an operating deficit of $46.1 million during the last fiscal year, ending March 31, 2016.

The Newfoundland and Labrador government helped out by providing one-time stabilization funding of $29.6 million to drop the deficit to $16.5 million.

Those numbers were released at Eastern Health's annual general meeting in St. John's Tuesday morning.

"On a $1.4 billion budget, a $46.1 million deficit is a very small percentage of the total," says Sharon Forsey, interim chair of the finance committee of Eastern Health's Board of Trustees.

"In an organization of this size there are many items that happen on a day-to-day basis that aren't planned for."

Stained surgical tools contributed to deficit

One of those unplanned items was the discovery of stained surgical tools.

That was a problem that plagued some of Eastern Health's hospitals this past winter.

The bill to fix that problem rang in at $5 million.

Sick leave is down

Eastern Health CEO David Diamond said on the bright side, sick leave is down.

"Through a variety of efforts in the organization we were able to reduce our sick leave by about 6.8 per cent," said Diamond.

"So far year-to-date we've reduced our sick leave by about 12 per cent."

He points to pilot projects and better management.

A campaign to have more staff wash their hands is meeting with less success: the compliance rate is just 60 per cent.

"It's a little increase in terms of where we were last year. It's nowhere where we need to be in terms of our 80 per cent [goal]."

He said Eastern Health has purchased software to do real-time auditing day-after-day on units at hospitals, predicting they'll achieve their goal of 80 per cent by the end of the next fiscal year.

Eastern Health said 88 per cent of people visiting emergency rooms were seen by a doctor within three hours of arriving.