BY CRAIG GILBERT
With another $5.6 million in operating dollars on the way and a summit meeting with the Minister of Health confirmed, the Sudbury Regional Hospital has ?turned the corner? according to CEO Vickie Kaminski.
Kaminski got word of the new funding at about 2 pm Tuesday.
?I believe the hospital has turned the corner,? she said. ?We have to be careful, and I?m not saying it will be easy, but now we are moving forward and the Ministry of Health is helping.
?It is a much more co-operative environment now.?
Kaminski said Minister of Northern Development and Mines Rick Bartolucci, now, and in his eight years as an opposition MP, has been a crucial ?long and strong? advocate for the Sudbury community.
?We are very grateful to him.?
The money, when received, will cut the hospital?s projected deficit for fiscal 2004 from $10.6 million (a figure that includes an undelivered $3.5 million promised by the province previously) to $5 million.
Across the province, Ontario hospitals will receive $385 million in operating funding.
Kaminski said she hadn?t had a chance to look at the specifics of the funding before speaking to Northern Life, so she doesn?t know whether the undelivered $3.5 million is included in the $5.6 million figure.
If that funding isn?t in hand before the now-confirmed summit meeting on the state of SRH, Kaminski will be demanding it.
MNDM spokesperson Laura Blondeau has confirmed the much-anticipated meeting on the financial state of the hospital will take place in Toronto March 29.
Bartolucci received confirmation from the office of Ontario Health Minister George Smitherman Tuesday.
She noted contrary to some reports, Smitherman didn?t commit to holding a meeting by the end of February.
?It wasn?t a matter of putting it off,? she said. ?It was a matter of finding a time in the schedules of two very busy ministers.?
Bartolucci was pleased Smitherman lived up to his commitment of setting a date before the end of the month.
?I am confident we?ll be dealing with this on a go-forward basis,? said Bartolucci.
The meeting will centre around the financial woes of the hospital, namely, the operating deficit, management and staff are wrestling with, and the capital shortfall that halted construction at the site in 2001.
The meeting will be attended by Bartolucci and Smitherman, staff from Smitherman?s office and that of his deputy minister, and ?key hospital officials.?
SRH spokesperson Barkley Babcock said without official confirmation on the meeting?s date from the ministry, he couldn?t say which hospital
officials would be attending.
