By Emily Ford
eford@salisburypost.com
SALISBURY – Nineteen hospital staff members will lose their jobs and three others will see their hours cut as the result of a reorganization, Rowan Regional Medical Center President Dari Caldwell said Tuesday.
The 22 job losses and reductions occurred in a variety of hospital departments, Caldwell said, but most employees who were affected were not involved in direct patient care. The reduction in staff will not impact patients or the hospital’s nurse-to-patient ratio, she said.
To reduce overhead, Rowan Regional has reorganized patient care units and evaluated all departments, “looking for opportunities to leverage our corporate resources to make care more affordable,” Caldwell said in a statement.
“All changes have been carefully evaluated, with the best possible care of our patients as our guiding principal,” she said.
Three employees will go from 40 hours a week to 24 hours a week and will be eligible for benefits.
The reorganization comes in response to three factors, Caldwell said: the economy, the national mandate to lower the cost of healthcare and changes required by the Affordable Care Act.
Rowan Regional must prepare for the future, Caldwell said.
“Our efforts have continued to focus on growth, as well as reduction of overhead,” she said. “We are focusing our growth strategies around expanding our primary care network, as well as continued specialty recruitment.”
The decision to cut jobs did not come easily, Caldwell said, and “this is a move that the hospital clearly would have preferred not to make.”
“However, we must meet the challenge of the national mandate of providing more affordable care,” she said. “Throughout all of these changes, our focus will remain on providing our community with the highest quality of care and the highest possible level of service.”
Contact reporter Emily Ford at 704-797-4264.