Crozer-Keystone Health cutting 400 jobs

Crozer-Keystone Health System began cutting 400 jobs this week and is discussing what it termed "wage adjustments."

The Delaware County entity, which has 7,000 workers at five hospitals, notified managers and medical staff of its plans Wednesday. Some nonunion employees already have left, Kathy Scullin, a spokeswoman for the system, said yesterday.

She said fewer than 400 people would be laid off because a hiring freeze had been in effect for several months. She did not have specific numbers. The layoffs will be "across the board," affecting managers and nonmanagers as well as union and nonunion workers, she said.

Nurses will be included in the cuts, she said.

The system also is developing a "comprehensive wage-adjustment package for all employees, and we will be asking the unions to participate in this plan," Scullin said.

Revenue is down because of a decline in inpatient admissions and outpatient visits and an increase in patients who do not pay their bills. Hospitals have said that those are national trends as the economy has slumped. Scullin said payments from the state also had fallen.

She did not say how much money the system needed to save.

The Crozer system includes Crozer-Chester Medical Center in Upland, Delaware County Memorial Hospital in Drexel Hill, Taylor Hospital in Ridley Park, Springfield Hospital in Springfield, and Community Hospital in Chester.

Bill Cruice, executive director of the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals, which represents Crozer nurses, said the system had not told the union how many nurses it intended to lay off.

He maintains that the system is top-heavy with highly paid executives and that it should pare there instead of cutting those involved in direct patient care.

A 2006 public report on the system's financial status listed chief executive officer Joan Richards' compensation at almost $725,000.

Scullin said yesterday that two vice president positions and one assistant vice president position either were not being filled or had been eliminated.

The system has consolidated three home-care agencies. That program will operate out of Taylor. Combined hospice services from Crozer-Chester and Delaware County Memorial Hospitals will have headquarters at Delaware County Memorial.

U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak (D., Pa.), who represents most of Delaware County, issued a news release yesterday saying he had spoken with Richards and urged her to protect jobs.

"As decisions are made to reduce workforce and employee benefits, management has a moral responsibility to be certain that the cuts impact the minimum number of people and offer the continued benefits necessary to see that a period of temporary unemployment does not result in an economic catastrophe," the release said.