Fraser Health will trim services to ambulatory care clinics in the coming months to save another $500,000.

It’s the latest measure aimed at helping the health region erase a $160-million budget shortfall.

The specialized clinics, run at hospitals to efficiently look after unadmitted patients needing everything from post-surgery care to cast adjustments, will be shut for up to two weeks over Christmas and up to five weeks over spring break and the Olympics.

The closures vary in length and type depending on the hospital and also affect adult day care programs in Royal Columbian and Surrey Memorial hospitals.

“If someone has an urgent need, they would still be seen,” said Fraser Health administrator Rowena Rizzotti, adding those patients may have to wait to be seen in the ER.

“We’re hopeful this will have a minimal disruption on clients’ access to service,” she said.

Staff vacations are being scheduled when the clinics are closed.

Clinics that are exempt from the cuts include ones handling cardiac, maternity, youth, pain and oncology treatment.

Rizzotti said the $500,000 saving represents about one per cent of the total ambulatory care budget.

Other cost-saving measures previously disclosed by Fraser Health include the delay of several thousand elective surgeries coupled with operating room closures, the capping of MRI scans at 2008 levels and the conversion of 200 acute care beds at hospitals across the region to instead serve elderly patients requiring long-term care.

Also cut have been grants and contracts for social service programs, including assistance to seniors, the mentally ill, addicts and sex abuse survivors.

Fraser Health CEO Nigel Murray said he can’t guarantee there will be no further cuts affecting patient care.

“The last place we’re going to look for further reductions is in clinical service, but I have to say I can’t rule them out,” he said.

Fraser Health and the B.C. Nurses Union have concluded a memorandum of agreement giving nurses affected by the cuts a fast track to take other positions and in some cases funding to retrain for specialty positions.

The deal recognizes the fact Fraser will need more nurses, not less, over the long run as the region’s population and health care requirements grow.