The St. Charles Health System is undergoing staff cuts in order to reduce expenses to try to dig out of a financial hole brought on by need during the COVID-19 Pandemic.
St. Charles Health System President and CEO Joe Sluka in a press release stated that they must reduce their workforce this week, eliminating 76 positions that were already vacant, but that wasn’t enough, they are also reducing 105 positions that will result in layoffs.
With skyrocketed labor costs, increased equipment and supply costs, decreased revenue and having to pay back pandemic relief funds, it brought them to the point where they have to take additional action to ensure the long-term financial stability of the health system.
Sluka talks about the possibility of more cuts in the future. “Despite all of our best efforts to reduce expenses, as you can see our costs continue to accelerate and we will take more cost cutting measures over time. We are hopeful that the impact to our caregivers is something that we will not have to resort to again. But we can never say never on that, we will always monitor the financial situation to make sure again that we have a high quality health system for the communities that we serve. At this point there is nothing being planned or nothing on the table and we hope we don’t have to resort to this again.”
Sluka also stated that although the decisions are incredibly difficult, they are being made in order to stay committed to becoming a more efficient health system that is well-equipped to continue caring for the people of Central Oregon.
The full press release is located in this link…St. Charles “Difficult Time, difficult decisions”
