Sacred Heart plans staff cutbacks

Sacred Heart Medical Center announced Wednesday that it will offer employees voluntary retirement and separation packages and take other steps to reduce its staff size between now and April.

Hospital spokeswoman Maureen Goins said Sacred Heart isn’t laying off employees at this point. She declined to say how much money the hospital aims to save or how many employees would need to leave before involuntary cuts were made.

But Bob Barker, a union representative for the United Food & Commercial Workers Local 1001, said Sacred Heart’s personnel director told him this week that 16 nursing assistants will lose their jobs.

Goins denied that any layoffs have been finalized. She said that the hospital is in the beginning stages of the process and that the administration hasn’t finalized the separation packages.

But, she said, the administration distributed new staffing guidelines to employees this week that outline staff-to-patient ratios the hospital plans to achieve. With the release of the guidelines, “it becomes somewhat apparent that some positions may go away,” Goins said.

Anne Tan Piazza, spokeswoman of the Washington State Nurses Association, said regardless of how the reductions are made, the result is bad for patients.

“The ultimate impact is there will be less nurses at the bedside caring for patients, and that will have a negative impact on the care that patients receive at Sacred Heart,” she said.

The union represents 1,300 registered nurses at Sacred Heart. Its labor relations director, Barbara Frye, said reducing that number, and therefore increasing the workload of the remaining staff, will decrease patient safety.

“This isn’t about factory workers speeding up the line,” she said.

Sacred Heart, the region’s largest private employer, laid off 162 employees last summer. Almost 90 who lost their jobs were LPNs, with the plan being that more registered nurses and nursing assistants would be hired to compensate for that loss.

Spokane’s hospitals are facing financial troubles. The number of charity cases is climbing, as is the number of patients not paying their bills. In addition, Sacred Heart President Mike Wilson said last summer that competition from local doctors’ offices was affecting the hospital’s bottom line. Patients increasingly seek treatment in the high-tech radiology, nuclear medicine and heart catheterization labs now being offered in smaller offices.

In December, Sacred Heart hired Navigant Consulting, a firm that helps hospitals improve their performance, to find ways to be more efficient. The new guidelines, which Goins declined to provide, are a result of their work.

In a press release Wednesday, Wilson said Navigant has shown Sacred Heart “how other top-performing hospitals have adapted to the tumultuous health-care environment.”

Barker, of the union, said Sacred Heart’s attempt to operate with the same staff numbers of other hospitals is “aiming to be average.” He called last summer’s cuts “a loss of talented, loyal employees,” but he applauded Sacred Heart for offering a voluntary separation program.

In addition to the retirement and separation packages, Sacred Heart will consider not filling some positions that are vacant now, improving management of overtime and reducing supply costs to minimize the involuntary staff reductions.

The administration plans to unveil the separation packages Feb. 28, Goins said.