Orangeville, ON – Headwaters Health Care Centre announced today that the hospital is acting to reduce expenses by $1.6 million to achieve a balanced budget as required by the provincial government.

Under the hospital’s budget plan, Headwaters will save $920,000 by not filling vacant positions, and reducing administration and support expenses that do not affect services or employment. The hospital will also generate $410,000 in new revenue from expanded ultrasound services, its new digital mammography and by adding nuclear medicine to its diagnostic imaging services.

The remaining $270,000 in savings will be realized through changes in hospital services that include:

·         Reducing Operating Room hours for elective surgery for three weeks per year (for Christmas, March Break and summer vacation)
·         Closure of outpatient physiotherapy program
·         Closure of outpatient Heart Function Clinic
·         Closing the Shelburne outpatient physician clinic (the clinic is used very infrequently)
·         Replacing the activities program at the Shelburne site with increased physiotherapy

The hospital will continue to provide rehabilitation for patients who have recently undergone heart surgery through its 16-week Cardiac Wellness Program. Previous participants in the Heart Function Clinic can receive monitoring and counseling from individual physicians in the community. Patients impacted by the closure of the hospital’s outpatient physiotherapy program will be able to access a number of private physiotherapy clinics in the community. The hospital plans to redeploy some of its resources from outpatient physiotherapy to enhance the inpatient physiotherapy program.

Following the announcement to staff at the hospital, Headwaters President and CEO, Cholly Boland, said these steps were very difficult but necessary to deal with current fiscal realities. “Headwaters will be making a number of changes over the next year. Our goal is to maintain our core services to support the delivery of quality hospital care. Unfortunately, we have to reduce some services to balance our budget, which means eliminating some part-time positions.”

Patients affected by services being closed will be provided with information about how to access similar services available in the community. It may take several months for the hospital service changes to take effect. The public is invited to provide comments and suggestions about hospital services. Please contact Cholly Boland, President and CEO, Headwaters Health Care Centre at 519-941-2702 ext. 2200.

Headwaters Health Care Centre
Headwaters Health Care Centre serves more than 110,000 residents in Caledon, Orangeville, Shelburne and Dufferin County. The hospital operates two sites – Headwaters Orangeville, a 108 bed acute care hospital and Headwaters Shelburne, a 33 bed chronic care hospital. Visit www.headwatershealth.ca.
 

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