TORONTO - Critics are questioning Premier Dalton McGuinty's pledge to help cash-strapped hospitals in tough economic times amid new figures that suggest their operating budgets will be cut next year.

Documents obtained by The Canadian Press suggest that funding for hospital operations will drop by $181 million in 2010-11 even though the province's regional health authorities are expected to get more money.

The 14 health authorities were set up by the governing Liberals three years ago to make local health-care decisions and dispense government funding to Ontario's 159 public hospitals.

The Local Health Integration Networks are projecting an operating budget of $21.19 billion in 2010-11, up from $21.15 billion in the current fiscal year ending March 31, 2010. Operation of the LHINs alone is expected to cost $65 million this year.

But funding for hospital operations is expected to drop to $14.1 billion from $14.3 billion during the same period, according to LHIN documents. Operational funding doesn't include money for nursing homes or other health-care initiatives, such as addiction programs.

The figures were included in a LHIN chart of funding targets over a three-year period. The chart, which also suggests that funding will be frozen at those levels in 2011-12, was revised in May.

It's another piece of bad news for Ontario hospitals, more than a third of which were bleeding red ink last year, critics said.

"What this document is showing is that the government is not going to keep their promise to the hospitals," said NDP health critic France Gelinas.

"The percentage increase that was small to begin with is going to be curtailed even some more, to the point where we don't see growth anymore, we see a decrease to hospital funding."

The Ontario Hospital Association said the funding targets in the document are "incomplete information" and do not reflect what the final numbers will be.

The chart doesn't include additional money that would be provided to adjust for inflation, reduce wait-times, or cover the costs of expanded hospital facilities, said Anthony Dale, OHA's vice-president of policy and public affairs.

"This is not at all an accurate portrayal of what the funding situation is going to be for hospitals in the 2010-11 year," he added. "No one knows that yet and it may not be known for many months."

Last week, McGuinty said hospitals would get some help as they struggle to balance their books, but they shouldn't expect funding to be as high as in previous years.

He was responding to a Canadian Press report that 61 of Ontario's 159 public hospitals couldn't balance their books in the last fiscal year ending March 31, amounting to a $154-million shortfall.

Ontario hospitals receive about 85 per cent of their funding from the province and are forbidden from running deficits by law, but many received waivers because they agreed to balance their books by the spring.

Ontario's deficit is now expected to balloon to $24.7 billion this fiscal year, which has both McGuinty and Finance Minister Dwight Duncan warning that cuts to government spending may be around the corner in order to re-balance the books.

And there have been no assurances so far that hospitals won't be affected.

"While we're obviously extremely concerned about the economic situation as any thinking person would be, the problem is that patients don't go away during a recession," said Natalie Mehra, executive director of the Ontario Health Coalition.

"They don't go away because of a deficit. They're still going to be there."

Health Minister Deb Matthews was not available to comment on the funding figures despite repeated requests made over two days.

Her staff cancelled a promised interview and instead released a brief statement saying the chart was a planning document only and that the final funding figures have not yet been finalized.

After seeing millions of dollars wasted at eHealth Ontario, taxpayers should be concerned that the LHINs are siphoning precious health-care dollars that would be better spent on preserving hospital services, said Progressive Conservative Norm Miller.

The LHIN in his Ontario riding is planning to close a hospital in the Muskoka village of Burk's Falls, which would force critically ill patients to travel at least another 40 minutes for care, he said. About 6,700 people signed a petition pleading for the hospital to be saved.

"We need more money going directly to front-line health services, and not to things like consultants or the LHINs," Miller said.

"We all know about the billion dollars wasted on the eHealth scandal. It's another good example of wasted money that should be going to front-line services."

Cathy Still, the reeve of Burk's Falls, said the LHINs are making decisions to shut down services without proper consultation.

She said she wasn't consulted about closing the local hospital even though she's both a paramedic and a municipal leader.

"I think the LHINs have created more problems," Still said. "It's another second tier of government that's just wasted our money. That money for the LHINs should have gone to these hospitals and long-term care facilities."