SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Stanton Territorial Hospital has climbed more than half way out of the red this year thanks to a multi-million cash infusion from the territorial government.

Kay Lewis, the CEO of Stanton Territorial Hospital, hopes to have the hospital back in the black within three to five years. - Tim Edwards/NNSL photo Deficit and surplus history 2004: $882,470 2005: -$249,232 2006: -$3,257,652 2007: -$2,977,260 2008: -$7,565,402 2009: $7,074,275 Current debt $6,162,037

The hospital's governing authority has released its financial statement for the fiscal year ending last March, which shows its debt has dropped to $6.1 million - down from last year's $13.2 million.

A bailout of $16.5 million from the Department of Health and Social Services - including $2.7 million to cover medical travel - transformed the hospital's projected $9.5 million deficit for the 2008/09 fiscal year into a $7 million surplus.

Without the government assistance, the hospital's debt load would have ballooned to more than $22 million.

It's the first time the hospital has recorded a surplus since 2004 when its finances began a free fall.

Dana Heide, the deputy health minister and public administrator of the hospital, said it's still unclear why the facility had accumulated so much debt but his department expects to figure all that out by early next year.

"There's always the question with deficits of whether you're overspending or underfunded," said Heide.

"That is the million dollar question."

"We should, by the end of this fiscal year, be able to be very clear of what we're funded to do, what that means in terms of being funded more or less in various areas, and we'll be able to go public with that conversation."

Kay Lewis, Stanton's CEO - hired earlier this year after serving more than a year as the CEO of the Yellowknife Health Authority, expects the hospital to be back in the black within three to five years.

"What I am trying to do is to identify exactly where the deficits in funding are, and then there needs to be decisions made on the services being provided and what it will require to fund those," said Lewis.

Heide said "the overall expenditures throughout the year were less than the previous year."

"We're still running a deficit, but it's less of a deficit so we're moving in the right direction."

Kam Lake MLA David Ramsay said he is puzzled as to how the deficit got to this point.

"The way the government's handled it in the past just hasn't been good," said Ramsay.

"How it got to the state it got into is anybody's best guess - whether it was mismanagement or chronic underfunding."