Citing a decline in revenue and less need for patient services because of measures taken in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, Washington Health System said Thursday that it was laying off staff while several of its departments and facilities were temporarily closed.
The health system – whose facilities include Washington Hospital and the WHS Greene hospital in Waynesburg – said it had started carrying out voluntary and mandatory layoffs for staff in the affected departments starting on Wednesday.
It was unclear how many people that meant. The layoffs come at a time when an outbreak of the coronavirus could bring more patients to WHS's facilities for treatment, if the number of cases in the region continues to climb.
Last week, the hospital postponed elective surgical and diagnostic procedures and closed some outpatient centers as a result of a mandate from Gov. Tom Wolf's office. WHS said this week it was extending those closures until April 11 at earliest.
Staff in those departments would be laid off while the departments remain inactive but would receive employee benefits while they weren't working.
"Due to these service changes and the stay-at-home order in place throughout our service area, Washington Health System has seen a drastic decrease in in-patient, emergency department and outpatient service utilization at all of our hospitals and physician offices," the system said in a statement. "During this time, we have been methodically preparing our patient care services and direct ancillary departments for what may be a rapidly increasing number of patients afflicted with the COVID-19 virus."
The health care nonprofit also said that direct-care providers and support staff from departments that are seeing a decline in patient volume were being cross-trained to work on other units, "to ensure that sufficient staff is ready and able to care for what may be a sudden increased volume of patients as the virus continues to impact the community."
System officials said they intend to "return to normal" as soon as Wolf's office gives the go-ahead. But with less revenue coming in, they said they couldn't afford to keep serving "a small fraction" of the normal patient load with typical staffing levels.
"We must conserve where we can now so that it is there in the weeks to come allowing WHS the ability to be here for our patients and communities in the future," they added.