Noble Hospital has made a reduction in forces that will affect 25 full-time employees.
WESTFIELD – Noble Hospital will make a reduction in forces affecting 25 full-time employees whose jobs will either be eliminated or reduced to part-time status, Ronald Bryant, the facility’s president and chief executive officer has announced
About 18 positions will be eliminated with a couple being cut because of resignations and retirements, Ronald P. Bryant, the hospital’s president and chief executive officer said Friday. The remaining employees will have their hours cut back, according to him.
Employees were given the news Wednesday. Bryant said changes took place immediately except for those involving unionized workers, who must be given two weeks notice by contract.
Bryant said the cutbacks were needed to adapt to a changing health care environment that involves insurance companies demanding higher quality, while reimbursements from them and the government are declining.
“Like any community hospital, we are struggling,” he said. “Certainly, you would not make a reduction in forces unless you had to.”
As for the hospital’s long-term prospects, Bryant said. “We are always trying to be more efficient.
The 97-bed hospital has about 600 full- and part-time employees.
In February, the hospital announced it will stop funding its employees’ pension fund effective April 15 and transfer financial responsibility to the federal Pension Benefit Guarantee Corp.
In a letter to employees, hospital President Robert P. Perry wrote that the action is common in health care and other industries as traditional pension plans become unaffordable and unsustainable.
In January of 2009, the hospital announced it was laying off nine of its approximately 600 employees to address cost and reimbursement issues.
This winter, 163 employees were laid off at Mercy Medical Center in Springfield as the Sisters of Providence Health System, which operates the hospital, struggled to close a projected $14 million budget deficit.
In keeping with the statewide trend, Mercy finished with 1825 employees last year, down more than 150 from 2009.
At Northampton’s Cooley Dickinson Hospital, 30 full-time equivalent positions were eliminated in May in the face of a projected $4 million deficit for 2010; that figure came on top of 100 jobs lost in previous two years.