QHC job loss talks begin
Administrator | Mar 06, 2013 | Comments 0
At meetings this week, Quinte Health Care is providing the unions representing staff with detailed information on the proposed impacts to positions at the hospitals. Unions leaders are to be given a few weeks to provide suggestions on how the plans could be altered to help minimize impacts to patients and staff.
“If the amended proposed solutions are fully implemented, there would be an overall reduction of 85 positions at QHC, including full and part-time staff,” said Susan Rowe, QHC director of communications, in a statement. “However, there are also currently 77 vacant positions at QHC, providing an opportunity for many of the affected staff members to either apply for a different job or be reassigned where appropriate.”
She said there have been no individual staff member layoff notices.
“It is not possible to remove up to $10 million from our organization without reducing the number of staff positions, but as always our goal is to manage this as much as possible through avenues like attrition, retirements and offering different positions where possible so that we can minimize the number of staff who need to leave QHC involuntarily,” said Mary Clare Egberts, QHC President and CEO. “The union meetings this week are part of the continuing process and we are sharing information as we have it.”
In late February, the QHC board of directors endorsed in principle, a set of amended proposed solutions to address the hospital’s estimated funding gap – as high as $10 million – for the 2013/14 fiscal year that begins April 1. A complete list of the proposed solutions is available on the QHC web site.
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