There's a "major cash problem" at the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance.
Projections have the deficit at $3-million by the end of March, and that could jump to $8-million by 2018-2019 if something isn't done.
Interim Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Jerome Quennville tells BlackburnNews.com that the CKHA is working to cut costs and not beds or services.
Quennville says the province penalizes hospitals with deficits and last year will hurt next year.
"Losing a million dollars out of your top line of income is really going to make a difference in correcting that," says Quennville.
He also adds the CKHA's costs are two times higher than similar size hospitals that deliver the same services.
"There's other hospitals in the rural community providing the same or better quality with the same or similar volume and spending much less," says Quennville.
The CKHA has been dealing with deficits for the past six years.
Quennville says a strategy to deal with the deficit should be finished in eight to ten weeks.
The budget for 2016-2017 is $140-million.