After more than 25 years, Salem Home in Winkler is ending its Adult Day programming as Provincial cutbacks continue to hit Southern Health.

The Adult Day Program offered recreation activities and congregate meal services for seniors in the community.

Salem Home CEO Sherry Janzen explains they were given a target savings of one percent of their budget.

To avoid cutting services to residents, the board looked at discontinuing the community program.

"We did not want to impact resident care," Janzen says. "That was the board's first directive."

The board will also let one position that saw a recent retirement go unfilled.

She notes when Adult Day started, the services available to seniors were rare.

"The world has changed since Adult Day was started, and we felt that a majority of the participants lived in places where they could access those services even without Adult Day."

Less than 80 percent of the daily spots available were filled.

"If it had been used at 100 percent capacity it would've been something we'd have looked at differently," Janzen says.

The last day for the Adult Day program is August 1.

"We're hoping in the end, the decisions we've made are the right ones," Janzen says. "We still have to run a balanced budget in all of this."