As the largest regional health authority in the province, serving a population of more than 307,000 men, women and children, we have a tremendous responsibility. It is a two-pronged responsibility: to provide the highest possible quality of care, while being careful stewards of public monies.

In a time of fiscal restraint, the blending of those dual roles is brought into even sharper focus. Eastern Health routinely examines best practices, programs and services to ensure that we are providing our patients, clients and residents with quality health care in the best ways possible.  Recently, as part of the Province’s Government Renewal Initiative (GRI), we were asked to provide potential deficit reduction opportunities for consideration in Budget 2016.

With that in mind, Eastern Health’s program leadership has spent the past few months identifying measures and consolidating plans which will:

• Drive operational savings;
• Increase productivity; and
• Maintain services without impacting the quality and safety of the care to our patients, clients and residents.

As a result of efforts across the organization, we are able to announce cost-saving initiatives amounting to approximately $19 million. The plans that have been made are designed to make our operations more efficient, more standardized throughout the organization and more in line with national guidelines.

As a result of these initiatives, some 107 full-time equivalent (FTE) positions will be eliminated.

The impacted FTE positions will be eliminated through various means, including redeployment to vacant positions or areas within the organization, and attrition upon retirement, whenever possible.

In addition to redeployment and attrition as measures to reduce FTEs, reductions will be achieved by reducing paid hours of work, e.g. leave replacement, extra workload.  This will result in fewer hours of work for temporary employees and less overtime for permanent employees.

As we work towards implementing these cost-saving initiatives in the weeks and months ahead, we will work closely with our union partners to minimize employees affected by the decisions we’ve needed to make.

At the end of the day, we must balance sound business decisions with the ability to maintain quality health care. Ensuring a sustainable health-care service along the full continuum of care is the ultimate objective, for the ongoing benefit of all those we serve.

David Diamond
President and CEO