An area hospital is having to lay off some of its staff due to COVID-19. Hospital Sisters Health System or HSHS Medical Group and Prairie Heart Institute of Illinois made the announcement earlier this month that thy would be laying off about 10% of their staff. Lori Harlan, Divisional Director of Marketing released a statement to Regional Radio News.

In that statement, HSHS says that they had seen a significant decline in the number of patients coming to the facilities due to services not being offered and resulted in negative financial impacts. With the hospital now starting to offer elective procedures and other operations, HSHS has started to bring back a majority of staff that had previously been furloughed.

In the statement, it was revealed that HSHS would not be able to bring back all of the furloughed staff as they would have to prepare for the “best chance for a strong, stable future.”  10% of the workforce was let go due to financial cuts, with a majority of the staff that was let go, being non-clinical. 

HSHS has 15 hospitals between Illinois and Wisconsin and fully owns two Illinois-based physician groups: Prairie Cardiovascular Consultants and HSHS Medical Group.

 

“Hospital Sisters Health System continues to stand proudly behind its entire staff that is providing critically important services as the communities we serve deal with COVID-19. Earlier this year, the pandemic shifted how patients preferred or were allowed to use their local healthcare services, and HSHS saw a significant decline in the number of patients coming to our facilities. That led to negative financial impacts, and we had to make changes to our workforce including furloughs and executive pay reductions. Now that we are able to offer elective procedures again, we’re seeing a rebound in the number of patients coming to us for care, and we are pleased to announce we are inviting back the majority of colleagues that had been placed on furlough a few months ago.

 

However, we are unable to bring back all of these furloughed colleagues.  In order to provide the best chance for a strong, stable future for HSHS through and after this unpredictable pandemic, we have made the difficult decision to reduce approximately 10% of our workforce in Illinois and Wisconsin.  The majority of of these colleagues are non-clinical.  We remain strongly committed to providing high quality healthcare and to making a positive difference in the lives of our patients and our communities, especially in this time of great need.”