The president and CEO of the South Bruce Grey Health Centre admits it will be tough to save the restorative care unit at the Chesley hospital.
Paul Rosebush told the more than 300 people crammed into the Elmwood Community Centre that the unit costs more than $800,000 per year to operate, but hospital funding has not increased since 2011 and there's no funds left to keep the program operating beyond May 1, when it's slated to close.
The restorative care unit allows patients to stay about an extra month in hospital to receive rehabilitation services aimed at restoring quality of life and independence.
Despite positive results reported from speakers in attendance, Rosebush says the only way to keep it open without new funding is likely to shut down beds in other areas of their hospitals.
"There's not a lot of options for our organization. We would have to look at reducing other areas of service to pay for this particular program if we didn't receive an increase at some point. We only have core services, so it could be beds in one of our hospitals," says Rosebush.
Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound MPP Bill Walker says the testimonials of the program's success tells him the provincial government could actually save money with more restorative care units, pointing out the units help people stay out of the health care system, reducing the overall cost.
The ten-bed unit sees about 100 patients each year, but Rosebush points out about half of those patients are from communities not served by the South Bruce Grey Health Centre, but they do not receive any compensation from other hospitals for taking on those patients.
Southwest Local Health Integration Network CEO Mike Barrett says discussions are ongoing between the LHIN and the hospital corporations to see what possibilities exist to keep the unit open, but they need to first determine how many beds are needed to serve the area.