Two Oregon hospitals were forced to layoff employees or eliminate positions after their parent company, Catholic Health Initiatives, announced last month it would be making cuts to combat poor financial performance.
St. Anthony Hospital in Pendleton laid off three administrative workers, Larry Blanc, director of communications for the hospital, said. Workers were notified the first week of January and were given four weeks notice, he added.
The employees also received a severance package and job support. The open positions will be eliminated.
“They’ll just be absorbed,” Blanc said. “Those duties are just being given to other employees.”
Blanc said while it is sad to lose employees, especially in a small community like Pendleton and at a hospital that has about 300 on staff, no clinical positions were impacted.
“There’s absolutely no effect on any type of care for patients,” he said.
CHI officials said in a statement that the decision to cut back was made as a result of lower than expected operating and financial performance in the first quarter of the 2015 fiscal year.
“Losses were due to a number of external and internal factors, including reduced utilization of services,” according to the statement. CHI officials said the workforce reduction will be complete by the end of the month.
CHI cut a total of about 1,000 positions nationwide, about 1 percent of its 90,500 workforce, according to the statement.
“These reductions were undertaken to sustain and strengthen CHI’s mission to build healthier communities and to ensure that the vital services provided by the organization are protected and sustained,” the statement reads.
Colorado-based Catholic Health Initiatives is one of the country’s largest healthcare systems with 105 hospitals in 19 states. According to CHI’S website, the non-profit company has $21.8 billion in assets and $13.9 billion in annual operating revenue.
At the only other CHI hospital in Oregon, Mercy Medical Center in Douglas County, officials had to cut five positions, said Kathleen Nickel, Mercy’s director of communication.
“I think anytime you do reductions it’s difficult,” she said. “You’re dealing with human beings. We try to do this in the most deliberate manner with the least amount of impact with staff.”
But fortunately for Mercy, which has about 1,000 employees, all the positions eliminated were either vacant or filled by people who were retiring or already planning to leave their job, Nickel said.
“If you can go a route in which it doesn’t impact individuals, that’s the best option for everyone,” she said. But someone will have to absorb those duties.
“Individuals will take pieces of those,” Nickel said.
Blanc said that, in addition to the cuts, the hospitals have also been asked to reduce travel expenses.
“With technology the way it is, we can still meet and accomplish some goals but we’re just trying to limit expenses, travel wise,” he said.
Blanc said while the local cuts were not easy, it’s part of being a member of a larger operation. And, he added, St. Anthony was lucky to have a small number of cuts and that it was able to move into a new, $74 million building in 2013.
“We all go up together and we all have to go down a little bit together,” he said.
