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ValleyCare’s operations realignment cost some workers their livelihoods
YOUNGSTOWN
While some of the attorneys, financial and business consultants are walking away from the Forum Health bankruptcy and sale with millions of dollars in fees, some people laid off by Forum’s new owner are wondering how they are going to pay their bills.
“I’m very disappointed in CHS [Community Health Services] coming in and disrupting so many lives,” said Debra James, laid off from the housekeeping department after 21 years at Northside Medical Center on Gypsy Lane.
James, of Youngstown, said she could have “bumped” to a job working from 5 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. at the hospital, but opted not to.
“How could I do that [work nights] when I’m raising two grandchildren?” she said.
Dorothy McLendon of Girard, one of the licensed practical nurses laid off this fall, did use her bumping rights to take a patient-care association position at about half her previous wage.
But she does retain her health benefits, which she said was a major consideration.
“I could not have lived on unemployment. I had no choice,” she said.
Community Health Services bought Forum Health, now called ValleyCare Health System of Ohio, for $120 million on Oct. 1, 2010. ValleyCare said it has invested more than $35 million over the past year on medical equipment and facilities upgrades.
David Fikse, chief executive officer of Northside and the entire ValleyCare Health System of Ohio, said in an interview last January that the No. 1 cost of any health-care system is labor.
He said then the staffing levels would be evaluated to determine if they are appropriate for the number of patients and to ensure that the quality of patient care would not be compromised.
That process led to the elimination of 93 support positions held by Service Employees International Union District 1199-represented employees — 83 at Northside and 10 at Trumbull Memorial Hospital in Warren.
Within the 83 are all 25 of the licensed practical nurses at Northside, the union said. “Our decision to reduce these positions was difficult, because we value all of our employees,” a hospital official said.