Worsening doctor shortage taking toll on hospital resources

Sault Area Hospital is now hopeful of ending its 2023-24 fiscal year in a surplus though it expects a deficit in 2024-25.

Ila Watson, SAH president and CEO told the hospital’s board of directors at its Monday meeting that despite inflation, compensation increases after the overturning of Bill 124 and disruptions to the supply chain, SAH may not end its 2023-24 fiscal year in deficit as originally expected.

Though some information is still confidential, Watson told the board on Monday that “based on recent funding letters that we have received, including reimbursement for retroactive compensation increases, we now anticipate ending this year in a surplus position.”

SAH’s 2023-24 fiscal year ends March 31.

However, SAH is looking at a deficit at some point in the 2024-25 fiscal year that begins April 1.

“For 2024-25 we don’t yet know what all of our funding will be,” Watson told the board.

Watson said that while that is not unusual at this point in time, “we do expect that we will be in a deficit position in the new year, in 2024-25. We don’t know at this time how significant the deficit will be and this will depend on how we are funded.”

“The challenge is that we know that maintaining services now will cost considerably more in the coming year than it did this year and we know the community relies heavily on the services that we offer and that the growing gap in primary care access will certainly have an impact,” Watson said.

The "growing gap in primary care access" includes the de-rostering of 10,000 Group Health Centre patients by May 31.

That follows news of 3,000 GHC patients being de-rostered and losing access to a primary care provider in 2023.

It is feared another 6,000 GHC patients will be de-rostered if trends continue.

It is estimated that 30,000 people in the Sault and area are without a family doctor.

The problem - locally, provincially and nationwide - stems from family doctors retiring with no new doctors to replace them, many medical school grads shying away from family medicine due to its workload and hours of paperwork.

It is projected that the number of de-rostered GHC patients will put a strain on SAH’s emergency department and other resources.

While Sault MPP Ross Romano and a task force of local doctors and healthcare administrators work to come up with a solution to avoid the May 31 de-rostering of more GHC patients, SAH says it is readying itself.

“Despite this we are recommending that we preserve our operations and prepare to be at least a short term provider of some additional primary care activities likely through our emergency department,” Watson told the SAH board.