By ANDY GARDNER

MASSENA -- The Massena Memorial Hospital board’s finance committee chairman urged his fellow board members and MMH staff on Monday to encourage people to use the hospital as it finished March $178,000 in the red.

“Talk about it. Don’t diminish the fact that we’ve got issues here - we’ve got volume issues,” MMH Finance Committee Chairman Gary Borgosz said. “We need to continue to push the fact that MMH is not a problem anymore.”

MMH CFO James Smith reported that the $178,597 March net loss was due to lower-than-anticipated patient volumes.

Although inpatient registrations met the anticipated 197, outpatient volume was down by 3.55 percent. That drove net patient revenue down about 7 percent under budget, which translates to about $273,000.

Even though MMH is still bleeding cash, Borgosz said they are on much better footing than a year ago and is “cautiously optimistic” they will eventually operate in the black.

Year-to-date, MMH is facing a $346,000 net loss. At this point last year, they were down $840,000.