City’s Public Hospital System Cuts 70 Employees

By Dartunorro Clark, NEW YORK CITY — The city’s hospital system laid off 70 workers as part of “routine” cutbacks, officials said. The cuts affected workers across the NYC Health + Hospitals system, which includes 11 hospital centers, five long-term care facilities and six treatment centers. The system employs more than 40,000 people. Workers were given notice on Feb. 7, according to a Health + Hospitals spokeswoman. Officials said the cuts were “routine” and did not affect staff in patient care. The spokeswoman could not provide DNAinfo New York with breakdowns of which facilities were affected, but the New York Post reported 15 of the workers were stationed at Bellevue Hospital Center. “Our senior managers identified approximately 70 redundant managerial level, non-clinical positions across the health system that are no longer essential and have been eliminated,” the spokeswoman said. “The identified redundancies have been addressed. It’s part of routine, good business practices. No services are affected. There will be no impact to patient care, quality, or safety.” An April 2016 report promised no layoffs, but did reveal the system was being “stretched to the breaking point by a looming financial crisis.” “The city and Health + Hospitals is committed to no layoffs — and instead will rightsize the workforce by attrition and partnering with labor to retrain workers for areas of growth in our Health + Hospitals system and across city government,” the report said. The report noted that without intervention, the system could have a budget shortfall of $1.8 billion by 2020. dnainfo.com/new-york