i; in the provincial budget Tis ‘March 24 proviit ts cial’ budget. offered the Ministry of Health a 7.5% | increase. Of this, 5.5% was to be funneled directly.” into hospital budgets. This looked like a reasonable increase. A 6.69% increase, a little better than: $70 million,” would at least allow B.C. . hospitals to keep pace. — with wage, increases and. inflation. | But in most cases, when B.C. . hospitals began receiving official : notification of . their 1992/93 budget allocations, any perception of the: word “reasonable” disinte- grated. Particularly in the north. ; Hospital boards Vancouver area, Fraser Valley and’ the Okanagan were happy. They were ‘told they would be getting more money in the new fiscal year, some of them as much as 6-8% more than they did in the previous year. - In. the distant, north, however, there were n0 smiles. All northern hospitals, including Terrace’s Mills: Memor- in. the forgotten ial,. learned they would be getting a 0% funding increase.. Given inflation, that meant. they would somehow have to offer the same services they did the year before with something like 4% less in real dollars. There were no smiles at all. "Its just like: last year never happened," says Terrace Regional Health Care Society CEO Michael Leisinger. — Early in 1991. there was con- cern that Mills Memorial might be heading for a year-end deficit. On June 26 a Terrace delegation a Terrace Review — May 8, 1992 Oe wh, CERES . “met “with Minister of . .: ‘Health Bruce’ ‘Strachan ; . and MLA Dave Parker i in - Victoria. eye =, “Their message:. ‘Mills Memorial Hospital served °° :.a regional function but . "was funded as.a munici- . ' pal facility. As a ‘result, . _ Mills Memorial was short. - about a half million dol-: lars in funding each year. Even with restraint, the: hospital. faced a projected operational shortfall of about $270,000. in -the. . °1991/92 fiscal: year, And .. the society had been - forced to order a staff. reduction of six nurses. and the closure of 24 beds. A Mills Memorial staff meet- ing on July 5 focused blame on Victoria, not the board of trustees, . and the idea of a petition was born. Strachan visited Mills Mem- orial on July 22 — there were already 12,000 signatures on that petition and it was still growing fast. . - During a July 5 press confer- ence, Strachan officially recog- nized the regional nature of Mills Memorial services and announced that his ministry would pay the