News

May 13, 2009

Geisinger South to cut 179 jobs

Transformation to outpatient center to result in job losses, ER closing before July 13.

By Jerry Lynott jlynott@timesleader.com
Business Writer
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WILKES-BARRE – Almost a year after Geisinger South Wilkes-Barre cut its staff in half, another round of layoffs loom in a move to make the hospital a place where patients can walk in and out the same day.

With the switch on July 13, the emergency department will have shut down, most patients requiring overnight stays will be treated seven miles away at Geisinger Wyoming Valley and 179 jobs will be eliminated.

Advances in medical technology and procedures have increased the number of people being treated as outpatients nationally and the trend is evident at the hospital, according to a review by the Geisinger Health System since it purchased the former Mercy Hospital Wilkes-Barre in 2005.

“Although the actual numbers have tailed off a little bit, what we really found is that the severity of the cases that are seen in our emergency department here now are much less severe than they had been in years past,” said Dr. Anthony Aquilina, associate chief medical officer for Geisinger Northeast.

The hospital will have adult and pediatric urgent care centers that will be open seven days a week, but not around the clock. In addition, the pain center and sleep medicine center will remain as well as inpatient hospice beds.

When the emergency department shuts down on July 10, the closest 24-hour emergency room for residents of the city’s south end will be Wilkes-Barre General Hospital. An estimated 50,000 people are treated there annually.

“This is really driven by the strategy that we announced back in November 2007,” said Dr. Steven Pierdon, chief medical officer for Geisinger Northeast.

At the time Geisinger said it would create two campuses “that really cover the continuum of services across the health care spectrum,” Pierdon said Tuesday. The “high-end intensive inpatient services” will be provided at GWV and “the lower severity” ones will be available at GSWB.

A greater share of the health system’s capital investment has been focused at the medical center in Plains Township. Geisinger committed $100 million to building a new critical care tower, expanding the Frank M. and Dorothea Henry Cancer Center and adding medical staff and professionals.

An estimated $14 million has been spent at GSWB and the health system will continue to invest there. Pierdon said an entire floor is being renovated for inpatient rehabilitation services being transferred from Geisinger Wyoming Valley.

“The intention is that this facility will have a focus on high throughput (output), very efficient, very safe, very patient-focused care for operations, that will be done with the expectation that the patient will be going home the same day,” added Dr. Alfred Casale, associate chief medical officer at Geisinger Northeast.

Geisinger took a big step in that direction last June when it cut its staff by 451 and began a transition to short-stay patient care. The changes expected to be made in the next 60 days will further cut the staff to approximately 150.

Rose Simchick, a nurse in the hospital’s intensive care unit and employee since 1969, will be let go. The job loss will be harder on others, said Simchick, 70, of Hanover Township and a member of the Services Employees International Union 1199P.

Some of her co-workers facing layoffs hoped to retire within a year or two. “Right now people can’t believe it,” Simchick said.

“We had a lot of hope when Geisinger bought us,” she said. But as the new owner made changes, workers suspected Geisinger had a plan in place. The massive layoff last year raised their suspicions.

“They knew something was coming,” Simchick said.

In a prepared statement Eugene Ginley, a central supply clerk and president-elect of the hospital’s union, said, “We’re going to stick together, to make sure our patients, our community, and our co-workers get the respect they deserve and we all get through this.”

The union said it scheduled a meeting for May 20 and it is likely employees will elect a bargaining committee to negotiate terms with Geisinger management, similar to the June 2008 layoffs.

Workers to be laid off can evaluate whether any of the approximate 248 openings throughout the Geisinger system are comparable, said Pierdon.

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