Update
Jennifer Burrows
Chief Executive, Providence Oregon
This week, Providence in Oregon is notifying 128 caregivers across our Oregon ministries that their positions are being eliminated.
The positions include clinical and nonclinical roles, union and non-union jobs, and include caregivers in our acute care facilities, as well as researchers and those whose efforts away from the bedside help make our direct patient care possible.
While we will make every effort to place these caregivers in other roles, we know that some will leave the organization. As we said when announcing our previous wave of reductions in June, these difficult decisions affect our employees and the communities we serve. They reflect the fact that every health system is undergoing a fundamental restructuring due to widespread workforce and funding issues.
The cuts to vital safety-net programs included in the recently passed H.R.1, as well as the regulatory environment here in Oregon, will only serve to deepen the crisis Providence and other health care organizations are facing.
In part, this means we will not be able to offer all services in all locations. Some of the changes you will start seeing in the months ahead will be related to consolidating patient services where we have high volume and high expertise.
This difficult work will continue until we return to being back in balance with the revenues we collect and the expenses we incur. Again, these changes reflect the fact every health system is undergoing a fundamental restructuring due to widespread workforce and funding issues.
Once again, these reductions are not single events in time. We expect to have additional announcements later in the year as we make progress toward getting ourselves back to a place of being at break-even in terms of revenue and expenses.
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