| SUNDAY [XWENTY Ww ¥ LGH to set day program user charges LIONS Gate Hospital will begin charging fees ranging up to $106 for some of its medical day programs starting Nov. 1. And some of those programs could be cut entirely by the hospi- tal if there is insufficient demand for them from the community. The new fees for the medical day programs are part of an overall plan by the hospital to help it overcome a projected $2.5 million budget shortfall in the 1989-90 fiscal year. The fee structure is be- ing instituted as a result of the hospital’s reassessment of what programs it should be using tax- payers’ money to fund. Hospital president Robert Smith said fees would be charged on those programs considered to be providing primarily educational rather than health care services to the community. ‘*We didn’t enter into this light- ly,”’ Smith said. LGH president Robert Smith ...fees to range up to $100. up to 3100 will be charged to par- ticipants in five medical day pro- grams at LGH: Back and Neck, Asthma (adult and pediatric), Cardiac Exercise, Stress Manage- ment and Nutritional Counselling. Smith said the fees charged will cover only a portion of the actual program costs. For example, the back program, which patients will be charged $100 to attend, he said, costs the haspi- tal four times that amount per per- son. He added that the programs for which charges will be levied, most pioneered by LGH, are now avail- able elsewhere in the community. Smith said the programs could be cut altogether if there is Emited demand tor them in the communi- ty. “If there doesn’t appear to be the need (for 2 program), there is no reason why we should continue to offer it,’ Smith said. Fees could also be charged on other day programs in the future, he said. Charging for some of the hospi- tal’s medical day programs was part of the service cuts planned at the beginning of the year to help LGH offset its projected $2.5 mil- lion budget shortfall. The hospital has also closed 39 acute care beds and cut approxi- mately 20 full-time equivalent LGH positions. LGH’s 1989-90 budget, which covers the fiscal year to the end of March 19990, is $71 million. But the hospital still does not know how much additional money it will get from the province for increased wages resulting from the contracts negotiated with the nurses’ and health care unions this year. Smith estimates that total will push LGH’s budget to $75 million, but if the provincial government’s budget formula allots the hospital less, UGH will have to offset any shortfall by re-allocating its budget. The provincial Ministry of Health was originally scheduled to review LGH's overall operations and some of its services in May to ascertain whether the hospital was eligible for additional operating funds. Smith said the ministry's team is now scheduled to visit the hospital Nov. 14. In addition to charging fees for medical day programs considered primarily educational, LGH will examine program restructuring, marketing and organizing coopera- tive arrangements with other organizations as ways of continu- ing to offer the programs to the community. LGH’s medical dey centre open- ed in February 1980 and provided what were then unique programs that helped dramatically reduce the amaunt af dime patients spent in hospital and thereby made more efficient use of LCdH acute care beds. October 29, 1989 News 985-21 NEWS photo Cindy Goodman appy Halloween AS THE witching hour approaches, children across the North Shore prepare their costumes and carve jack-o'-lanterns in case they encounter witches on Halloween night...like this one. Motorists are reminded to be extra careful Tuesday night and be fon the lookout for trick-or-treaters on local roads.