UMass Memorial to Cut Jobs Again

When it comes to hospitals to many of us they all seem the same. White tile halls and people in blue scrubs doing their jobs the best that the can are standard sites. So before we talk about the job cuts being made to the staffers at UMass Memorial Health Care lets begin by getting familiar with the company and the facilities that they run. Here is a look at how the company chooses to describe itself, “UMass Memorial Health Care is the largest health care system in Central and Western Massachusetts, and the clinical partner of the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Our health care system includes five hospitals, all of which are fully accredited by the Joint Commission or Det Norske Veritas…Our system also includes home health and hospice programs, behavioral health programs and community-based physician practices. Approximately 1,700 physicians are members of our active medical staff, and we have 12,350 employees, including 3,000 registered nurses. In total, our hospitals have 1,125 beds. In 2010, we treated 58,937 inpatients, and counted more than 1.4 million outpatients visits. We delivered 4,800 babies and our emergency departments handled 263,000 visits.”

Sadly the health care company is getting ready to eliminate about 140 jobs between now and the end of its fiscal year. The new fiscal year begins on the first of October, which means that the job cuts are going to come in the very near future.

This is, of course, not the first time that the company has resorted to layoffs in order to cut back on its expenses. For those of you who missed out on our earlier coverage here is a look at cuts made by the company earlier in the year, “Another health care facility is getting ready to get rid of workers in order to correct its budget. This time the bad news is coming to the workers of UMass Memorial Health Care. This week the management of that health care facility 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 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.”

Before that the company also made some significant cuts back on 2010, “UMass Memorial Health Care notified employees Tuesday that it was cutting 350 jobs, the Boston Globe reports. The cuts equate to 2.6 percent of the health care system’s total workforce of 13,700. According to the report, UMass Memorial is making the cuts because of “flat patient volume and pressure from health insurers.” A total of 130 workers will be laid off, another 120 vacant jobs will be frozen and 100 jobs will be trimmed by moving full-time employees to part time and cutting overtime.”

Update: UMass Memorial Health Care hiring back. Please visit here to get more detail on Granted.com.