Hospital job cuts affect 150
More than 150 employees at two Spokane area hospitals will be laid off or have their hours reduced as Empire Health Services struggles to stem million-dollar-a-month losses.
The decision to shrink Empire’s staff by 8.6 percent is the latest sign of financial difficulty for Spokane County’s second-largest private employer.
Empire operates Deaconess Medical Center and Valley Hospital and Medical Center.
During the past two weeks, 39 workers have received notice that their jobs have been eliminated. Another 43 people have been told their hours are reduced.
The workers include nurses, respiratory therapists and nonunion employees. Most are at Deaconess, the larger of the two hospitals.
When reductions are complete in a few weeks, the staff will be smaller by the equivalent of 150 full-time positions. That number includes some jobs that were open through normal attrition and won’t be filled.
Empire had employed about 2,400 full-time and part-time workers, the equivalent of about 1,700 full-time employees.
The nonprofit hospital system lost $4.5 million during the first quarter of this year and since then has continued to lose about $1.5 million each month. Hospital leaders blame rising costs, low volumes of patients in general and high numbers of patients who don’t pay their bills.
Washington law requires hospitals to provide free care to people living at the poverty level, but the state Legislature has cut money that used to help hospitals make up for those losses. The problem is shared by all hospitals in the state, but it’s particularly acute for hospitals in low-income areas.
“More and more families are going without health insurance, but when uninsured patients come to hospitals they are still given care,” said Carter Wright, spokesman for the Service Employees Union International 1199NW, which represents nurses and technicians. “Hospitals can’t provide care for free. If employers aren’t going to provide affordable care, the state and federal government need to step up their support for hospitals.”
The reductions announced Monday are reminiscent of 2002 when the hospital system eliminated more than 100 positions and closed some programs. The following year, the hospital system tried an across-the-board pay rollback of 9 percent, some of which was later restored. The hospital rebounded somewhat in early 2003, but losses returned late that year.
Recently, the hospital system hired accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers to evaluate its operations and look for ways to save money through layoffs, updating business practices and controlling supply costs. Pricewaterhouse is also helping implement its suggestions, including the layoffs.
Empire CEO Garman Lutz, in a statement, termed the reductions “rightsizing.”
“Fewer patients require less staff,” Lutz said in the statement. “We will still continue to provide excellent care to our patients.”
The uncertainty of Empire’s financial outlook is nudging some nurses out the door, said union spokesman Wright.
“Some people are taking a look at what’s happening and are leaving,” Wright said. “There’s an echo effect that doesn’t show up in the real numbers.”