EPIDEMIC OF BUDGET DEFICITS

What ails Alberta hospital spending?

Alberta’s hospitals are stuck in a vicious cycle of overspending, routinely blowing their budgets only to be awarded more money the following year, a Postmedia investigation shows.

The pattern stands out in an analysis of financial results from 86 hospitals operated by Alberta Health Services that shows the health-care centres collectively overspent by more than $925 million in the last eight years.

Of those hospitals, 55 posted at least six deficits in that eight-year time frame, while 41 hospitals — nearly half — recorded at least seven deficits.

Just five hospitals went over budget in two years or less.

The reasons for this persistent trend are both contentious and complicated, but the excess costs come at a time when the cashstrapped province is struggling to reduce its hospital-related bills, the most expensive form of care in the health system.

“There is an old saying in hospitals, that a built bed is a filled bed,” said McMaster University economist Arthur Sweetman, the Ontario research chair in health human resources.

“If there is a person in emergency and they are on the margin of being admitted … if there is any empty bed, they are going to be admitted.

“In general, hospitals operate close to capacity, and part of that is the design of medicare because among the patients, doctors and administrators, nobody is actually paying for anything.”

Financial performance statistics for at least some Alberta hospitals used to be publicly available, but the practice stopped about 20 years ago with the amalgamation of various health regions.

Postmedia obtained results for the last eight years through a number of freedom of information requests to AHS.

HOOKED ON HOSPITALS

Putting a clamp on the insatiable funding appetite of hospitals has proven to be a confounding issue in jurisdictions around the country; the issue has been particularly troublesome in Alberta.

The province consistently ranks as one of Canada’s top per-capita spenders on health care, and statistics indicate much of this is linked to the large sums of money annually inhaled by the buildings bearing a big white H.

Figures from the Canadian Institute for Health Information show the $8,112 cost of a standard hospital stay in Alberta is easily the highest in the country and well above the national average of $5,992.

There is an old saying in hospitals, that a built bed is a filled bed. McMaster University economist Arthur Sweetman

ED KAISER Hospitals across Alberta repeatedly fail to stick to their budgets, a problem that has added up to more than $925 million in overspending in the last eight years.

DAVID BLOOM Hospitals in Alberta’s cities tend to post deficits more often than their rural counterparts.