Jackson Health System to Cut Unknown Number of Jobs

More bad news is coming to health care workers and this time it is the workers of the Jackson Health System. The Jackson Health System, which is located in the Miami area, is getting ready to get rid of a number of jobs. At the current moment the Chief Executive of the hospital system, Carlos Migoya, is not giving out a lot of details on the specifics. He would say that the company is looking into making cuts in each of its departments in order to find out where the cuts can be made. The hospital was quick to stress the fact that there will be no impact to patient care. They hope to have more details in about the cuts in the next two weeks.

The health system is attributing the cut back of staff to a drop in the number of patients that are coming to the facilities. Most notably was the delay in care given, choosing outpatient procedures instead of staying in the hospital and shorter stays in the hospital over all. With fewer patients the facility not only has less revenue, but also as they see it, creates a need for a smaller staff. At the current moment union leaders are not issuing any official statements about the decision to make the job cuts. They may be waiting to find out how many jobs are being cut and what kinds of positions are being let go before they talk to the hospital leaders or the media.

Jackson Health System is, of course, not the only hospital to make staffing cuts in the recent past.  Recently UMass Memorial, “…announced that they would be letting go about 150 workers in the very near future.  They are also going to sell two of their business to other companies, a move that will put hundreds of other jobs in jeopardy. These moves are designed to help the company to make the $50 million in budget cuts that they need in order to stay in the black.

The company is blaming the need for cuts on increased competition and a decreased patient volume as people choose to delay or forgo care. The facility also cited an increased amount of free and reduced fee care as part of its need to layoff workers.

The company hopes that all of the 150 layoffs needed will be able to come from one of the companies that they are selling, immediately, but they are currently in talks with the three different unions that represent the workers in order to determine what cuts are the most likely.”

These kinds of cuts are despite what is being predicted to be an overall improvement in the employment situation of health care workers. A recent report put out by the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that, “…here were a lower number of mass layoffs in the health care industry in 2011 that there were in 2008. They were also lower than the number in 2009 and the number in 2010. In 2011 there were only 121 mass layoffs in hospitals. While that was a grand total of about 8,098 people claiming unemployment benefits that year as a result of mass layoffs the numbers are down.”