Bostons Children’s Hospital to Cut Jobs

Health care and money have a strange relationship. After all they have to treat patients no matter their ability to pay. Yet this does not prevent the costs of the treat patients, such as paying their staff and buying supplies. In the current economy this leaves many facilities grasping at straws on how to pay for everything.

Boston Children’s Hospital is a name that some of your may be familiar with, but for those of you who are not lets begin by taking a look at how the facility has chosen to describe itself, “Boston Children’s Hospital is a 395-bed comprehensive center for pediatric health care. As one of the largest pediatric medical centers in the United States, Children’s offers a complete range of health care services for children from birth through 21 years of age. (Our Advanced Fetal Care Center can begin interventions at 15 weeks gestation, and in some situations, we treat adults.) Children’s records approximately 24,943 inpatient admissions each year, and our 228 specialized clinical programs schedule more than 557,620 visits annually. Additionally, the hospital performed 26,534 surgical procedures and 158,791 radiological examinations last year.”

Sadly the facility is getting ready to cut back on about 225 jobs in order to make ends meet. The company is making a mass layoff action happen under the current federal guidelines. For those of you who are not familiar with the idea of a mass layoff action here is a look at how the federal government defines the term, “The Mass Layoff Statistics (MLS) program collects reports on mass layoff actions that result in workers being separated from their jobs. Monthly mass layoff numbers are from establishments which have at least 50 initial claims for unemployment insurance (UI) filed against them during a 5-week period. Extended mass layoff numbers (issued quarterly) are from a subset of such establishments—where private sector nonfarm employers indicate that 50 or more workers were separated from their jobs for at least 31 days.”

The company put out an interesting release about the its new research, but no information about the layoffs was posted, “A growing body of research shows that children who suffer severe neglect and social isolation have cognitive and social impairments as adults. A study from Boston Children’s Hospital shows, for the first time, how these functional impairments arise: Social isolation during early life prevents the cells that make up the brain’s white matter from maturing and producing the right amount of myelin, the fatty “insulation” on nerve fibers that helps them transmit long-distance messages within the brain.”

Before that the company made a public statement about the allegations currently made against Dr. Richard Keller, “Providing safe and appropriate care in a safe and protective environment is the absolute paramount priority for Boston Children’s Hospital.  When the hospital learned of the allegations against Dr. Richard Keller earlier today, he was immediately put on administrative leave pending results of the investigation by the US Attorney’s Office.  We will cooperate fully with the US Attorney’s Office and all other involved regulatory and legal authorities. No complaints or concerns have been expressed by any patients or family members about the care Dr. Keller provided while he was at Children’s.”