‘Very, very impressive’ is how Salem Township Hospital’s auditor described the hospital’s financial performance during the fiscal year ending March 30th.
David Goodman of WipFly says the hospital finished with a $15.3-million bottom line.
Hospital President Alex Nazarian says part of the positive balance is the result of federal COVID relief money and a PPE loan that has now been forgiven. But he says the hospital endured a few painful months where they lost money as a result of some of their decisions to benefit employees and the community.
“What is the point of being a hospital if you have to shut down? So we kept our services open. We did not have any layoffs. We kept all our staffing levels. When we had the lockdown we were not allowed to do surgeries for example, so out whole surgical department, we kept them on staff and paid them even though there were no volumes. Some other institutions decided to do layoffs or furloughs, we did not do that.”
Nazarian says while they were there to help their employees and community during the tough times, he feels both remember the actions of the hospital board by standing with the hospital now.
As far as how the $15.3-million positive bottom line will benefit the hospital.
“Every year we provide about $5-million worth of free care. We need to have those reserves to be able to do that. I mean $5-million per year for a small hospital like us, that’s significant amount of free care that we provide.”
Nazarian notes the hospital supports 220 jobs.
The hospital also finished August above budget as a result of strong outpatient services. Inpatient numbers are down from last August when COVID-19 was at a peak. However, Nazarian added COVID has not gone away although it is not as bad. Of the 1,072 taking COVID tests at the hospital in August, 188 were positive.
