Cuts will occur throughout the system that includes Mercy Medical Center in Springfield and Providence Behavioral Health Hospital in Holyoke.
SPRINGFIELD – Citing a looming budget shortage of “several million dollars”, the Sisters of Providence Health System has laid off 19 full- and part-time administrative workers from its total staff of 3,113.
The Sisters of Providence Health System is also reducing the hours of 45 employees of between two and 20 hours a week, said Mark M. Fulco, senior vice president for marketing and strategy.
Reductions in hours become effective May 1.
In addition, a number of vacant positions will never be filled, including the role of chief operating officer.
He said the cuts will occur throughout the system that includes Mercy Medical Center, a 182-bed hospital in Springfield and Providence Behavioral Health Hospital, a 126-bed behavioral health hospital located in Holyoke.
The Sisters of Providence system also includes Weldon Rehabilitation Hospital located at Mercy Medical Center campus in Springfield and Brightside for Families and Children in Holyoke.
Mercy Continuing Care Network includes six nursing care facilities and an adult day health program in Springfield, Westfield, Turners Falls, Lenox and Holyoke. The Sisters of Providence also have Mercy Home Care and Mercy Hospice arms.
“The financial challenges we face at Sisters of Providence Health System are not unique, and most heath care providers are facing similar, difficult operational decisions. The changes, however unfortunate, are necessary and will not impact the quality of patient care,” Fulco said.
The impact is both from changes in the way health-care providers are reimbursed and continued weakness in the general economy.
“I think we are seeing the first impact of health-care reform,” he said.
The Providence Health System is still hiring clinical workers like doctors, nurses and laboratory technicians in all its workplaces, Fulco said.
Sisters of Providence laid off 163 all over its system in June of 2010.
Last week, Noble Hospital in Westfield announced that would either reduce to part-time or cut outright 25 jobs from a staff of 600.
At Northampton’s Cooley Dickinson Hospital, 30 full-time equivalent positions were eliminated last 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.
Fulco said Mercy is moving ahead with a $1.3 million expansion of its emergency room from 28 beds to 43 beds. The project is expected to be completed by early summer.