By ANDY GARDNER

MASSENA -- Massena Memorial Hospital is closing the gap to outpace last year’s admissions and surgeries and has already handled more emergency room visits.

From Jan. 1 through Oct. 31 of this year, they have handled 1,848 admissions compared to 1,977 for all of last year. They have performed 1,893 surgeries in that time this year, compared to 1,919 total for 2015. ER visits for Jan. 1 to Oct. 31 tallied 13,473 with last year’s total at 13,223.

Those numbers come from a presentation MMH CEO Robert Wolleben gave at Monday’s Board of Managers meeting.

He said they have gained a full-time equivalent over last year, with 366 last year and 367 through Oct. 31. This is because of doctor recruitment.

“Every time we bring on a physician, and we’ve brought on five physicians, there’s staff associated with the physician,” Wolleben said. “Full-time equivalents are likely to go up a little bit over the next month or two.”

Prior to Wolleben taking the helm, MMH was losing thousands of dollars from operations each month. That soon turned around after he came onboard, but not before about 20 full-time equivalents were slashed.

In October, MMH gained $150,000 from operations and is in the black $1,144,000 year-to-date, according to the month’s financial and statistical summary.

In October 2015, they gained $29,800 and had gained $87,600 year-to-date, according to the summary.