Most people would probably expect government-run hospital cafeterias to break-even when they sell chocolate bars, sandwiches and muffins to the public and hospital staff.

But that’s not happening.

Data obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF), a donation-based taxpayers’ watchdog organization, found government-run hospital cafeterias in Manitoba lost $2.2 million in 2010-11 and $2.3 million in 2011-12. Again, that’s not food for patients; those are losses selling food to the public.

That’s $4.5 million that otherwise could have been spent on hiring doctors and nurses. Alternatively, had the provincial government gone after inefficient spending examples like this it wouldn’t have had to raise the provincial sales tax.

Some of the losses around the province (for 2011-12 alone) included $152,915 at Flin Flon General Hospital, $50,676 at Brandon’s Fairview Personal Care Home, $260,564 at Churchill’s cafeteria and $164,480 at Winnipeg’s Riverview Health Centre.

What got us poking around on this issue? Well, there have been several cases of government-run hospital cafeterias and restaurants in other provinces that have been exposed for losing tons of money.

For example, hospitals in Windsor, Ontario and St. John’s, Newfoundland decided to buy Tim Horton’s franchises and set them up inside their hospitals. They then staffed them with unionized government workers and began serving up double-doubles. The only problem of course was that their wages and benefits were more than double what normal Tim Horton’s workers made.

At the Windsor hospital’s Tim Horton’s, staff pouring coffee were paid a whopping $26 per hour when you include their benefits. Not surprisingly, the hospital lost $265,000 last year. By comparison, someone working at a privately-owned Tim Horton’s would have made around $10.25 per hour.

In St. John’s, their staff made around $28 per hour (including benefits) and their Timmies lost $260,000. Go figure.

Whether we’re talking Windsor or Winnipeg, in both cases the hospitals have to make up for the losses by robbing funds from elsewhere.

In Winnipeg, the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority claimed the losses were paid through parking revenue and other profit-making activities like gift shops. In other words, when you pay a small fortune to park at one of their hospitals, you’re helping to pay for the cafeteria to lose money whether you use it or not.

That doesn’t make sense. Cafeterias should break even and parking fees should be used to maintain parking lots. If either of them happen to make money, it should go to helping cover health care costs.

Fortunately, there was a bright spot in the data uncovered by the CTF. The Victoria General Hospital in Winnipeg partnered with a private business in 2012-13 to run its cafeteria. By doing so, they turned a $186,851 loss (when the hospital ran it in 2011-12) into a $25,591 gain (likely rental revenue from their partner.) In other words, the hospital saw a $212,442 turn around; funds it could use for true health care services.

That’s exactly the type of thing more hospitals in the province should be doing. They should test the waters and invite the public and business community to submit bids to run their cafeterias.

It may not work out in every situation, but reducing cafeteria losses is just plain healthy for your wallet and for patients.

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