LOWELL — Amid a rising well being care disaster, Tufts Drugs is the most recent group to announce layoffs.
Of its 13,000-person workforce, Tufts is eliminating “70 primarily administrative positions” and 170 open positions, in keeping with the assertion shared with The Solar Monday.
At Lowell Normal Hospital, three staff, whose roles don’t influence affected person care, misplaced their jobs, and a further 58 open positions have been eradicated, in keeping with a hospital spokesperson. The hospital employs about 3,400 individuals, the spokesperson mentioned.
The spokesperson declined to supply additional element in regards to the eradicated positions.
In a press release, Tufts Drugs cites monetary constraints because the motivation behind the layoffs.
“Like many well being techniques within the Commonwealth and throughout the nation, Tufts Drugs has skilled vital monetary challenges attributable to put up pandemic capability constraints, reliance on greater value contract labor, particularly in nursing, and delays in discharging sufferers for post-acute care,” Tufts Drugs wrote. “Whereas we now have diligently applied cost-controlling measures throughout the system, we should now make the extremely tough resolution to scale back our workforce.”
The well being system added it’s “totally dedicated” to sufferers, households and its workforce.
“Tufts Drugs will proceed to work intently with exterior companions to deal with the monetary disaster impacting the complete healthcare system,” the assertion learn.
Lowell Normal — which is by far the most important employer within the metropolis, in entrance of UMass Lowell and software program firm UKG — is seeking to rent nurses and medical employees as hospitals in Massachusetts and throughout the nation face elevated monetary pressures attributable to staffing shortages.
The hospital beforehand laid off 29 individuals in April 2018.
There have been about 19,000 unfilled acute well being care jobs in Massachusetts in October, in keeping with a Massachusetts Well being and Hospital Affiliation examine. The roles with the best vacancies embrace licensed sensible nurses at 56% and pulmonary perform technicians at 35%, with 40 different positions with charges within the double digits.
One other space well being supplier, Bridgewell, reported over 300 job openings — 25% of its group — in Could of final yr.
Such workforce shortages means sufferers have restricted entry to much-needed care due to hospitals’ smaller capability, in keeping with the MHHA examine. Fewer staffers additionally means monetary cuts, fewer transportation choices, crowding and worker burnout.
The MHHA known as this era “the one most tough stretch for our healthcare system throughout the board,” and regardless of reduction from the state, they hope to obtain extra funding on the federal degree “for the suppliers who’ve pulled our nation by the previous three years.”
“Suppliers have achieved all the things of their energy to stay open and accessible to the sufferers who depend on their care, however it has come at a staggering value,” the group wrote in a press release. “These situations usually are not distinctive to 1 area or one group; each hospital throughout the nation is grappling with the worsening pressures of workforce shortages, capability constraints, and deep monetary losses.”
