Monadnock Community Hospital announced layoffs of 21 employees last Wednesday, a decision that President and CEO Cyndee McGuire said was a direct result of the financial impact associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.
“This was an extremely difficult decision. Eliminating positions is always our last option,” McGuire said announcing the layoffs. “Our employees have been heroes these past five months. By carefully containing costs and reducing pay for administrators and managers, we have kept the number of impacted staff members to the fewest possible. We remain focused on the long-term sustainability of our hospital, while simultaneously preparing for our future in the event of expected COVID-19 surges.”
McGuire said the layoffs came from across the organization and not one specific area because the hospital wanted to make sure services are covered. She said that over the last three months, the hospital had furloughed 84 employees and since have returned 63 – or 75 percent – of those employees. The remaining 21 were not brought back, McGuire said, a decision that was the last possible option.
“We are concerned about our employees and this is not something we took lightly,” McGuire said.
During the furloughs, McGuire said employees retained their health insurance benefits with the hospital paying the employee portion for eight weeks. McGuire added that pay cuts for senior leadership (10 percent), and physicians and director/manager level leaders (5 percent) have continued and will be reevaluated at the end of the fiscal year.
She said that 40 percent of the hospital’s costs are fixed, so in order to reduce losses, the cuts had to come from employee pay and benefits. While the goal is that these recent layoffs be the only ones, McGuire said they continue to evaluate employee expenses on a bi-weekly basis.
“Health care has been on a tight margin for quite a long time,” McGuire said.
But the reality for Monadnock, and hospitals around the state and country, is that the COVID-19 pandemic has made things difficult financially.
In announcing the furloughs in May, MCH reported the hospital lost $1.7 million in March, and projected monthly loss over the next year would fall between $3 million and $4 million per month or a total of $24 million by the end of the fiscal year ending in September. McGuire said Friday that revenues have improved, but losses are still averaging just less than $2 million per month.
“Unfortunately this is the challenge the health care world is facing,” she said.
And the longterm sustainability of MCH has to be of the utmost importance.
“It’s such a volatile environment,” McGuire said. “We have to make sure we’re here for the long term. We need to be open 24/7 no matter what happens… We have to focus on being here as a hospital for our community.”
In late June, it was announced Monadnock Community Hospital would receive $1.28 million in federal CARES Act money to bolster its bottom line after declining revenue during the COVID-19 pandemic, one of eight New Hampshire hospitals to receive funding totaling $24.9 million.
But McGuire said that doesn’t even cover one month worth of losses and “it doesn’t fix the whole problem.”
At the onset of COVID-19 in March, MCH shut down all its non-essential services, which significantly cut back its volume in patient care. Since slowly returning many of those service beginning in June, McGuire said the hospital is operating at about 75 to 80 percent of its pre-pandemic volumes.
“We have been gradually getting there, but we probably won’t get back to 100 percent for quite some time,” McGuire said. Services that have not returned include cardiac rehab, pulmonary fitness and the Bond Wellness Center. McGuire said cardiac rehab and pulmonary fitness are hopeful to return in late September/early October, but it is still unclear when the Bond Wellness Center, which is currently being used for physical therapy, will resume operation.
“We will bring them back eventually when it’s safe to do so,” McGuire said.
Even with services returning, McGuire said they can’t offer them in the same way as before while adhering to safety guidelines.
With the pandemic still ongoing and surges in other parts of the country taking place, McGuire said they will be ready for a surge and expects one to happen, but even if numbers spike in the area, McGuire said they don’t plan on shutting down like they did in March.
“We have three phases to the (surge) plan right now and we can flex in and out of those phases anytime we need to,” she said.
McGuire said she is overwhelmed by the support the hospital has received, from food and gift cards, to the donation of cloth masks and personal protective equipment.
“I can’t thank the community enough for the support of the hospital,” she said.
At a time when hospitals need all hands on deck, the loss of jobs was the last option.
“We proceed with caution and in the interest of safety of our community,” McGuire said.