payroll.

a Hospital officials held
“critical’. meetings” with
: Ministry of Health staff last
: week over the ongoing cash
crisis...

Senior | ‘Assistant Ad-
ministrator Eric O'Dell said
ery.“We' have got to get
some: kind: of action pretty
fast. cbecause of our ac-

umulated' deficits. Our cash
flow i is becoming pretty bad.

: “If we don’¢ get any ad-
- justment iin funds we are
going to find ourselves with a
pay day without any moncy.

It hasn't happened yet but it
could happen soon.

Senior hospital staff met
last. Thursday with Ministry
of Health staff and ac-
countants retained by the
department to discuss the
continued problems of under
funding.

O'Dell says Lions Gate
welcomes investigation of its
finances because it believes

WEDNESDAY
Qoud, sunny intervals,
scattered showers

THURSDAY
Lide change

“worrying”

about how y much longer the re hospital c can meet its

that the budgets submitted to
the ministry are already

trimmed to the bone and that:;
the persistent underfunding .
can only lead to cutbacks in:

existing services.
RULED OUT

And such cutbacks are
something the hospital is not
even prepared to consider
unless they are ordered by
the ministry and apply to all
provincial hospitals.

Lions Gate expects a
response by the ministry to
last week’s mecting within a
week or so and O'Dell says:
“We hope we are: going to

gét an acknowledgement
that the costs we are in-
curring are legitimate,

realistic and that they can't
be held down any lower than
they are to give the services
we are giving.”

The problem is not unique
to Lions. Gate. The situation
of underfunding by the
ministry is a crisis being
faced by several other Lower
Mainland hospitals.

It is aggravated by the fact
that since the _ situation
occurs each year, the ac-
cumulated deficit grows ever
larger.

This year Lions Gate
submitted a total budget of
$43,400,000 and received
approval for $40,600,000,
leaving a shortfall of $2.8
million.

Added to last year’s deficit
of $2.5 million and $40,000
left over from 1979-80, it
puts the hospital in the red

y $5.5 million.

CONTINUED ON PAGE A8

.

POLITICAL AMBITION was the accusation levelled against Richard
Blackburn (on the left) and Greg Richmond when they appeared before North

Van City council Monday to requeat funding to open a tenants ald office on the
North Shore. (Stuart Davis photo}

RUFUS PARK tenants

waited in vain Monday
night for their landlord
to show up at a North

* Vancouver City

;' council meeting § to
which he had _ been
invited.

Not only did Cressey
Development Corporation
fail to show at the meeting,
but the company ignored
another Cily request to meet
with the tenants by Friday of

last week, charged Greg
Richmond. vice-president of
the North Shore Tenants
Association (NSTA), who
spoke at the crowded

council meeting

However Richmond and
NSTA President Richard
CONTINUED ON PAGE Al2