Deficit deepens: Calvary Hospital has had to reissue its 2013-14 financial statement.
Calvary Hospital’s budget black hole is more than double initial calculations, with new documents revealing the hospital suffered an $11.3 million loss.
The hospital was forced to withdraw and then reissue its 2013-14 financial report with ASIC after re-examining their books to ensure they complied with accounting standards.
The reissued financial statement shows the northside health facility lost $11.3 million, more than double the $4.9 million deficit indicated in the previously published 2013-14 report.
The new figures show the hospital suffered a $12.3 million change of fortune from the previous year when Calvary Health Care ACT reported a $1.1 million surplus in 2012-13.
As revealed by The Canberra Times last month, the hospital instituted a staff freeze after the financial loss.
Calvary national chief executive Mark Doran this week reiterated his previous comments, provided last month, that Calvary had absorbed the “budget overrun” and that services and care would not be affected by the disappointing financial results.
“Calvary Health Care Bruce remains committed to delivering safe, high-quality, effective and efficient health services to meet the needs of our local community and working with ACT Health to achieve this across the territory,” he said on Tuesday.
Mr Doran said Calvary would meet activity targets set by the government this year.
“A significant amount of work has been undertaken, and will continue, to ensure that this activity is undertaken within the resources provided by the ACT government for that purpose. The issues faced by the Bruce health facility were similar to those facing many other public hospitals.
“These include the ageing population, long life expectancy of people with chronic illnesses and new treatment options, rapid growth of patient numbers with specific illnesses and increasing costs and complexity of delivering health services,” he said.
In the previously lodged report, Calvary claimed its revenue for 2013-14 was $225 million but this was revised down to $220 million in the fresh statement.
The result was still up on the previous year’s revenue of $213.6 million.
The documents indicate 84 per cent of revenue from operating activities came from government grants and subsidies, and totalled $185.6 million in 2013-14 – about $5 million less than the $190.8 million stated in the first 2013-14 financial report.
Expenses were initially projected as $235.1 million in the first report but were revised to $236.3 million in the most recent statement.
Documents said the financials were reissued after “certain elements of revenue and the recoverability of certain trade receivability” were reassessed.
“This reassessment resulted in the derecognition of revenue items total $5.175 million due to lack of of evidence to support [accounting standards] and an increase in the provisioning against trade receivables totalling $1.306 million,” the report said.
A spokeswoman said the ACT government met its obligation to Calvary in providing an agreed amount of funding in 2013-14.
She said ACT Health met regularly with the hospital to monitor their progress against their performance agreement.
“At the end of 2013-14, Calvary Hospital identified pressures from the 2013-14 financial year which they are now working to mitigate for the 2014-15 financial year,” she said.
“In line with this, ACT Health is currently negotiating the 2014-15 performance agreement with Calvary.”
The spokeswoman said the ACT government had increased funding to Calvary Hospital over the years, such as a $34 million increase in 2011-12 and 2014-15 for the provision of public hospital services.
The financial report said management was “actively reviewing operational performance” to improve Calvary’s financial result.
As reported by The Canberra Times last month, the financial report said should financial assistance be required, Calvary Health Care ACT may “call upon financial support from the parent entity Little Company of Mary Health Care”.