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The nitty-gritty of HSN’s budget: Local hospital spent $218M on salaries in last financial year

HSN Foundation is already at halfway point in raising $7M for new MRI machine 
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While Sudbury's Health Sciences North reported excess revenue of $338,000 for the fiscal year that ended on March 31, it is a proverbial drop in the bucket for the total spending of Northern Ontario's largest hospital, which has an annual budget of more than $517 million. (Len Gillis/Sudbury.com)

While Sudbury's Health Sciences North reported excess revenue of $338,000 for the fiscal year that ended on March 31, it is a proverbial drop in the bucket for the total spending of Northern Ontario's largest hospital, which has an annual budget of more than $517 million. 

The surplus revenue figure comes to less than one-tenth of one per cent. 

Regardless, the hospital still represents the second largest public budget in the city after the City of Greater Sudbury's municipal budget for 2020 which is $619-million.

The HSN financial statement, audited by KPMG, was tabled at last week's annual general meeting. It revealed the largest expense item of that budget is $218 million for salaries and wages. Employee benefits added another $62.7 million. 

Another expense item "Medical staff remuneration" accounted for an additional $29.4 million.
 
A hospital official revealed that the salaries and benefits are payments made to hospital employees. This does not include most physicians who are generally not employees of the hospital. 

The medical staff remuneration amounts reported are payments made to physicians. These payments include OHIP fees, on-call fees, leadership roles and other payments made to physicians relating to services performed in the hospital, said the official. 

Total expenses listed in the statement of operations was $517,651,000.

On the revenue side of the ledger, the largest item of revenue was the funding provided by the Ontario Ministry of Health and Ontario Health North, which provided $399.4 million. 

Cancer Care Ontario provided $70 million. Another category described as "Specifically funded programs" provided $46.8 million in revenue. A category only described as "other" provided $47.5 million in revenue. Patient services provided $37.1 million in revenue, said the audit statement. 

Total revenue listed in the statement of operations was $517,989,000.

The revenues and expenses listed are assigned for day-to-day operating costs at HSN. Separate revenue is raised through the hospital foundations for the purchase of new equipment, or to refurbish older equipment. 

Hospital CEO Dominic Giroux told the AGM that the HSN Foundation and the Health Sciences North Research Institute Foundation had raised $4.7 million in the past year. 

Giroux said the health ministry has approved the acquisition of a second MRI for the hospital. He said the HSN Foundation is already at the halfway point of fundraising the $7 million required for a new MRI and the cost of refurbishing the existing MRI. He said that project will be completed by mid-2021.
 


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Len Gillis, local journalism initiative reporter

About the Author: Len Gillis, local journalism initiative reporter

Len Gillis is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter at Sudbury.com covering health care in northeastern Ontario and the COVID-19 pandemic.
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