Last month, the Shiners' board of trustees voted to close four of the group's eight research centers and lay off about 40 people at its administrative office.

At the organization's annual meeting July 6-8 in San Antonio, about 1,200 Shriners will vote whether to close hospitals in Shreveport, La.; Erie, Pa.; Spokane, Wash.; Springfield, Mass., and Greenville. Semb said they were chosen mainly because of too many vacant beds.

The organization also will consider whether a hospital in Galveston, Texas — closed temporarily after damage from Hurricane Ike — will remain shuttered.

Shriners Hospitals for Children in Salt Lake City is not among the six hospitals out of the 22 that is under consideration for closure, according to Mike Babcock, director of public relations for the local medical facility.

"The Salt Lake hospital is one of the most efficient hospitals in the system and we have the capacity to take on any patients that may come from one of the hospitals that closes, if that in fact is the case. It most likely would be the hospital in Spokane, Wash.," he said.

The Salt Lake facility currently sees 5,000 children per year that come from Utah and six other western states in the U.S., as well as two states in Mexico.

If the Spokane hospital is closed, then other patients coming to Salt Lake City would likely be coming from Montana, northern Idaho and Canada.

"The outlook is not good, but we know that we can right it," Semb said. "And we can within a five-year period of time get our expenses down far enough to equal the income we have coming in and hopefully start building on that endowment fund."

Contributing: Linda Thomson, Deseret News