The Geary Community Hospital Board of Trustee’s has approved the budget for Fiscal Year 2016 beginning May 1, and it includes the closure of the Senior Behavioral Health Clinic at the hospital.

Dr. Joe Stratton, GCH CEO explained that the Hospital has struggled to get enough volume into the center over the past several years in order to keep it sustainable.

“When you have only one or two patients a day and you’re having to staff it 24 hours a day, seven days a week and 365 days a year with ten professionals, eventually the numbers don’t add up and to be quite honest with you, they haven’t added up for years here,” said Dr. Stratton.

Closing the center is projected to save the Hospital approximately $200,000 a year.

Stratton went on to say they will be working with the ten employee’s who currently work in the center helping them find new positions within the hospital or they will help them move out of the hospital over the next month through a benefit program.

The Hospital is budgeting for an increase in revenue, but that won’t necessarily be related to higher costs to patients, but an increase in the volume of outpatient care instead.

“What’s taking place in many hospitals across the state and the country is your inpatient volume is decreasing while your outpatient is increasing. That’s not all bad, particularly for the patients. But the payers, Medicare and Medicaid and insurance companies, aren’t interested in paying for individual patients to be in the hospital and hospital beds.”

Despite cuts in certain areas Hospital employee’s across the board can expect to see a 1.3 percent pay raise in the new budget.

“We certainly would like to do more, but we feel that we want to do something. Our employee’s, we value greatly and they’re really what makes the engine run here at GCH.”

The budget was approved unanimously and does go into effect starting on May 1.