Workers at HUP wait for pink slips

Health System employees fear the worst, hope for the best in the face of announced layoffs. Come Monday, several hundred employees of the University of Pennsylvania Health System will receive their pink slips, head home and have to look for jobs somewhere else. For now, though, all UPHS workers are going about their business each day, unsure whether their names will be included on the list of laid-off employees, uncertain when the layoffs, budget cuts and the financial problems will end. UPHS Chief Executive Officer William Kelley announced last week that the financially troubled Health System will cut 975 administrative positions from each of its four wholly-owned hospitals in five days. An additional 725 positions in specialty facilities, physicians' practices and home care, will be eliminated by June 30, 2000, the last day of the current fiscal year. But those employees who will be laid off will not be notified until Monday. Though UPHS has refused to release any information about what departments will be hit until then, some workers say they have already had conversations with their supervisors and department heads, many of whom were told how many people to fire from their divisions and then left to make the choices. Yesterday, as an air of apprehension hovered above the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, the Health System's flagship hospital, many employees expressed their collective anxiety about their fate. "Everybody's basically on pins and needles," said one female employee who has worked in the gastroenterology division since February. "It's just a wait -- a long, agonizing wait." Another employee, who asked that her name not be used, said she thought "everybody should feel nervous" about their job security. "It's their jobs. It's their income." One man who works as a cleaning person in the hospital said he had been told by his supervisor to "be prepared to have more work added on and [to] be versatile," the employee recalled. Still, the workers are resigned to the fact that their futures at the Health System, though uncertain, rest with a higher power -- be it God, their division heads or even Kelley himself. "It's in the Lord's hands," said one female employee who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "I worship my God to no end. If they close one door, God'll open another door." Two other female employees said they considered themselves entirely powerless in this situation and, therefore, were doing their best not to think about their futures until absolutely necessary. "If I am [fired], I am. There's nothing you can do, but go look for another job," said one pregnant female employee. "I'm just not worried," said one nurse while standing in line at a food truck adjacent to the hospital. "I can always get another job. I can't get stressed out about that." The layoffs, designed to put the Health System back on the long road to financial recovery, come five months after UPHS eliminated 1,100 managerial positions and laid off 450 employees. The forthcoming layoffs, coupled with the May cuts, represent a whopping 20 percent workforce reduction in the Health System. Health System officials have maintained that the cuts will not directly affect those involved in patient care, like doctors and nurses. "You might have to wait a little longer to see a doctor or a nurse but the doctor and the nurse are still going to be there," Health System spokesperson Rebecca Harmon said yesterday. The cuts come out of a recommendation made by the Hunter Group, a Florida-based consulting firm called in to help the Health System slash its expenses. UPHS' financial difficulties have become increasingly steep over the past few years. In Fiscal Year 1999, for example, the Health System posted a stunning $198 million deficit. The year before, it lost about $90 million. Kelley has previously said that he is willing to reduce or even eliminate entire medical programs in order to reduce costs. In fact, the Health and Disease Management program, one of the Health System's most widely praised endeavors, is likely to be scaled back significantly with the implementation of the recovery plan. Health System officials have long blamed their fiscal woes on decreased Medicare payments from the federal government and delayed reimbursements from private insurers. But yesterday, some workers said they believed that the Health System's difficulties start with management itself. In particular, employees felt angry that Kelley was still earning a seven-figure annual salary. In FY 1998, the last year for which such statistics are available, Kelley's salary and benefits totaled $1,204,508. He has already announced that he will not receive a salary increase in FY 2000. "I don't care what anybody says – it's all [Kelley]. All that money he's making, get rid of him. Then there won't be any layoffs," said one female employee who has cleaned the hospital for the past 10 years. Still other employees said they felt completely secure in their jobs, mainly because their departments and divisions cannot afford to be undermanned. "I work in cardiology. We bring in more money than anyone," said Elizabeth Lehman, a secretary in the division. And one man who works as a scrub nurse in the operating room said he was virtually positive that his position would be unaffected. "We're part of the OR and we're understaffed as it is," the worker said. "So, if they try and cut us," he said, chuckling, "there's going to be trouble."

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