Officials holding talks Hospital trouble probed THERE MIGHT BE some hope for financially-troubled Mills Memorial Hospital. Saddled with a deficit from last year and prospects of a budget shortfall of more than $400,000 this year, senior hospital officials spent Jast week talking over their plight with health ministry officials. And they've agreed to not discuss the situation publicly Until information generated last week is put on paper for further discussion. Although Mills chief executive officer Michacl Leisinger declined to comment further, word that the two parties will talk again is significant. That's because the health ministry bad already given Mills its budget allocation for next year. But if the two parties are continuing to talk, it could mean a break is forthcoming to ease the hospital’s finan- cial dilemma. “I'm sorry.-I can’t say anything,’’ said Leisinger last week when contacted about the latest discussions. ‘“We've agreed not to discuss anything publicly.” Information gathered last week is being put on paper for presentation to the Terrace and Area Health Council, the new body which now controls Mills and other health care facilitics in the city. As it is, Mills is going to put seven of its 39 beds on its main medical services floor into storage and work on plans to have no more than 25 patients in the remaining beds at any one time. Not affected by the closures are the three beds in its in- tensive care unit. This current round of bed closures will reduce the avail- able number to about one-third of what it was at the begin- ning of the decade. Mills officials have singled out several key areas affect- ing expenses. Although the hospital isn’t recognized as providing a regional service when it comes to getting moncy from the provincial government, it does so by default because it is the largest facility in the northwest and Terrace has a high number of medical specialists based here. And plans brought in last year to control expenses in its nursery didn’t work out because there were more sick babies than expected, That brought on a budget overrun of $200,000. That has caused the hospital to ask for more money to run the nursery for a higher level of care than was original- ly budgeted. Officials have warned thai failure to get more money could restrict admissions to the intensive care unit and to the baby nursery. The grant presented to Mills by the province this year is $11.024 million, an increase of .68 per cent — $75,500 — over 1996, One piece of good news is that the province will pick up the $34,000 cost of the one per cent pay equity hike for Hospital Employees Union members effective April 1. But there’s no indication if the province will also provide the money for a general one per cent pay hike for Mills employees this November. kk kkk Mills has closed one of its two operating rooms for the summer. That’s not specifically tied to the hospital’s budget and is also standard practice in other hospitals to al- low for summer vacations. Tourists get dinged for maps SAY GOODBYE to the days of free provincial gover- ment highway maps used by tourists and others, Increasingly tight government budgets put an end to the free maps June 1. Tourism British Columbia, the new tourism agency cre- ated by the province late last year, now sells the maps to tourism infocentres which then puts on a slight markup for resale, The maps at the Terrace and District Chamber of Com- merce's infocentre sell for $2.95 plus GST. Chamber manager Bobbie Phillips says the infocentre has received complaints from B.C. residents but not from out-of-country tourists. ‘““Americans and Europeans are not surprised to have to pay but BCers don’t want to,”’ she said, Phillips ordered 100 maps at the beginning of the tourist season in June and has just placed an order for another 100, She said the mark up about covers the cost of admin- istration tied to the map sales. Tourism British Columbia official Bill Eisenhauer said the province simply couldn’t afford to shoulder the nearly $1 million it costs to print 500,000 maps each year. ‘*The sale cost is in line with most other maps and we're the last jurisdiction in Canada to do cost recovery,’’ he said. ; “These maps contain detailed information and we real- ized there is a value to that information,”’ A map is contained in the free travel guide published by Tourism B.C. but it isn’t as detailed as the $2.95 one, Eisenhauer added, But there are plans to add more in- formation to ihe travel guide version next year. The $2.95 version contains parks information, just as did its free predecessor. Tourism generated $7 billion in revenue across the pro- vince last year. That figure is expected to rise to $7.13 bil- lion this year. The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, July 9, 1997 - A7 KILLING US. | | connecTion Road In this week's Kmarl fyar elfective Saturday, Juty 5, the folowing error has occurred: Sense q PAGE Ka: . The Maxell 40 pk Disks featured should read “Maxell 10-pk Disks” Sale Prica $4.99 Part of the Provincial WE APPOLOGIZE FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE THIS MAY HAVE CAUSED. Road Safety Program. Kmar Canada Ge. Salon Beautiful Hair De) Everyday.