Helen Ellis lays off 15 workers

The Tarpon Springs hospital also will not fill another 15 positions.

By DIANE STEINLE

© St. Petersburg Times, published March 21, 2000

TARPON SPRINGS -- Helen Ellis Memorial Hospital, faced with falling numbers of patients and struggling financially, laid off 15 workers Friday.

It is the first time the hospital has laid off employees, said hospital spokesman Jerry Touchton.

The hospital also will not fill 15 other jobs that were vacant, for a total reduction of 30 positions.

Those 30 are in addition to 100 positions that were eliminated during budgeting for the 2000 fiscal year, Touchton said. The 100 reductions were made through attrition or by deciding not to fill jobs that were open.

The hospital would not say which departments lost workers, but Touchton said that the quality of patient care was not compromised by the latest cuts.

"The changes that occurred . . . related to demand for services, but they definitely were not a factor in the quality of care," he said. "Staffing of the hospital is based on demand for services. When there is less demand for service, there's less need for staff."

Last summer the 168-bed hospital announced that it had cut weekly hours for some full-time employees to avoid layoffs. Hospital officials also said at the time that they were leaving 40 vacant jobs unfilled and were encouraging employees to take leaves of absence.

But those announcements came at the end of June, a traditionally slow time for the hospital. Friday's layoffs came at what is usually a busy time for the institution.

"I will not have anything to say about that," hospital administrator Joe Kiefer said Monday when contacted for comment about the layoffs.

Instead, he referred a reporter to Touchton, the hospital's director of marketing and community relations, who said the decision to lay off workers was made because the number of patients requesting service was lower than expected during the winter season.

"They looked at the situation and decided it was necessary to stay within the budget as much as possible," Touchton said. "I don't think this is anything that would be a shock to anybody. At certain points, you have to make a decision."

The hospital's own consultant had recommended recently that the hospital cut staff. The consultant, William R. Hough & Co., noted that the hospital had only 10 days' cash on hand and had lost $937,000 in the first four months of the fiscal year that started Oct. 1, 1999.

But less than two weeks ago, when Kiefer was asked if the hospital would respond by laying off some workers, he said it would do what it has done for the past year: reduce staffing levels through attrition. He said at the time that the hospital had fewer than 800 employees.

The hospital is pinning its hopes for survival on a proposed affiliation with Choice Health Alliance, a nonprofit partnership of Adventist Health System of Winter Park and University Community Hospital of Tampa.

But so far, Choice Health and the Tarpon Springs Hospital Foundation, which operates Helen Ellis Memorial in city-owned buildings, have not announced an affiliation pact.

If they do agree on one, a proposed new lease of the city property must be drawn up and voters must consider it in a referendum, a process city officials say would take at least 60 days.

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