(CNN) -- Matt Aldridge would have trouble contemplating life without the Shriners Hospital for Children in Greenville, South Carolina.



Maddie Aldridge has received extensive care at South Carolina's Shriners Hospital, including leg amputation.



Aldridge, 28, and his 21-month-old daughter, Maddie, were born without shinbones. Both had their legs amputated at Shriners near their first birthdays. Like all care given to youths admitted to any of North America's 22 Shriners Hospitals, their surgeries and follow-up treatments were free to them.



Aldridge estimates the care he received through his teens in the Shriners' system -- which admits children irrespective of their parents' income -- cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, approaching the lifetime limits of some insurance policies.



Now, he and his wife, Renee, take Maddie to Greenville -- about a 90-minute drive from their South Carolina home -- at least every six weeks, partly for treatment of a hip condition.



Without Shriners' cover-all-costs policy, the family would be in serious trouble, said Aldridge, who works at a Wal-Mart cell phone connection center. Renee is a stay-at-home mother, and the family doesn't have private medical insurance.



"If it weren't for Shriners, we'd be financially devastated," Matt Aldridge said. "With just the care Maddie has received already, we probably would be bankrupt."



For the Aldridges and many other families, accessing care from Shriners may get a lot more difficult.



The system's board says it may ask the fraternity's membership in July for authority to close six hospitals -- including the one in Greenville -- largely because the endowment fund that supports the hospitals dropped from $8.5 billion to $5.2 billion over the last year as the stock market plummeted.



The others that could close are in Erie, Pennsylvania; Shreveport, Louisiana; Spokane, Washington; Springfield, Massachusetts; and Galveston, Texas. The Galveston hospital's operations have been suspended since Hurricane Ike flooded it last year.  See map of where all 22 Shriners hospitals are »



Deflated investments aren't the only reason the fund has dropped. The hospitals normally operate with donations and the fund's interest, but the system's $856 million 2009 budget is outpacing both, causing the hospitals to take about $1 million per day from the fund, said Ralph Semb, president and CEO of Shriners Hospitals.



Other proposals from the system's board would close just one hospital or none, but slash spending systemwide. Leaders also are exploring other options, such as partnering with non-Shriners hospitals. But one way or another, the system must cut spending by about 30 percent to survive, Semb said.



"If we do nothing, every hospital would have to cut 25 to 30 percent from their budgets, which in effect would shut about six of them anyway, because they couldn't give the services they've been giving," Semb said.



Still, the hospitals can't close without consent of the fraternity's membership. Two-thirds of the roughly 1,400 representatives at the group's July 6-8 Imperial Council Session in San Antonio, Texas, would have to vote for it.  Learn about the Shriners fraternity »



History shows that might be difficult. Members, some of whom transport children to hospitals themselves, killed a 2003 proposal to close the hospital in Minneapolis, Minnesota, after a similar market downturn.



"I don't think it will happen. I don't think it should happen," said Carl V. Nielsen, a 40-year Shriner and a board member for the Minneapolis hospital, which is not on the current possible-closure list. "That would leave large areas of the country without a Shriners hospital, and the cost of transportation of the patients back and forth [to the remaining hospitals] would be too great."



Shriners Hospitals, which deals with certain specialties up to age 18, have treated hundreds of thousands of children free of charge since the first facility opened in Shreveport in 1922. Most offer orthopedic care. Four, including the Galveston hospital, care for
What do hospitals' leaders seek Who would have to approve closures?
exploring other options, such as partnering with non-Shriners Two-thirds of the roughly 1,400 representatives
question: What do hospitals' leaders seek, answer: exploring other options, such as partnering with non-Shriners | question: Who would have to approve closures?, answer: Two-thirds of the roughly 1,400 representatives