Despite ongoing staffing challenges and requests from the province to trim the budget the CEO of Prairie Mountain Heath says health care in the region is in pretty good shape.

The region services a wide area and Penny Gilson feels health care delivery is pretty good.

“We finished the 2016017 year in a slight surplus positions of around $120,000 which is good news however that was due to significant one time funding from the province and that funding isn’t rolled into our base line” said Gilson.

She added there are huge expectations that the region is operating as cost effectively and efficiently as possible while delivering high quality care. “From a service perspective I think we had lots of successes in 2016-17. We do have ongoing challenges with human resources and our efforts have to be continuous and relentless.”

In 2017 Prairie Mountain Health trimmed 15% in the management area and that was aimed at meeting the province’s management streamlining goal.

“We’ve also looked at any and all opportunities from an administrative perspective to reduce costs so all of our back office operations such as our human resources, our finance and our information and our information-communications technology departments they all got they all got an automatic reduction in their budgets and we’ve asked them to live within that.”

The RHA has been where possible trying to achieve those savings through attrition.

“We do that on the service side of things as well because if activity levels have changed is there an opportunity is there a chance to reduce costs and that process is ongoing” said Gilson.

There is a lot of talk about a shift in services but Gilson says it is too early to make any comments on that issue. She adds the introduction of Shared Services Manitoba means that group will take the lead on clinical services planning for Manitoba.

When it comes to capital projects Gilson says the redevelopment project at Brandon’s Regional Health Centre that will see the addition of medical beds there and the redevelopment of emergency room and special care unit at Dauphin’s Regional Health Centre those are the region’s two major capital projects.