Jackson Health System’s CEO announced Tuesday that his organization is laying off 920 staffers and eliminating another 195 vacant positions to give the organization the “rock-solid foundation” it needs as he right-sizes it.
Carlos Migoya said Jackson will also create about 350 new part-time jobs so it still maintains “the proper staffing levels to provide excellent medical care and customer service for our patients.”
In all the moves will save Jackson about $69 million per year, including about $55 million in salary, Migoya estimated.
The changes are needed so Jackson can cement its foundation and then work toward “robust and sustained growth,” said Migoya, who previewed Tuesday’s layoffs at the start of this month.
Patient admissions have dropped recently at Jackson Health System, which includes six hospitals.
JHS administrators said Feb. 7 that a new three-year contract had been reached with employees represented by Service Employees International Union Local 1991 that could include up to $150 million in salary and benefit concessions, an agreement intended to help the organization “move beyond its current year-to-year survival mode.”
The president of SEIU Local 1991, Martha Baker, slammed Migoya for the "massive layoffs" in a statement Tuesday evening.
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"This is what you get when you hire a billionaire banker and then cut him loose to take a chainsaw to healthcare in Miami-Dade County," said Baker, who is a registered nurse. "It’s unbelievable that he wouldn’t consult the nurses, doctors and healthcare professionals – who have sacrificed out of their pockets to keep Jackson afloat – about how his plan to ‘right-size’ the system might harm patient care. We have no idea how Mr. Migoya thinks patient care can be maintained with such drastic cuts to frontline caregivers."
Migoya said in a letter to members of Jackson’s Financial Recovery Board Tuesday that Jackson will have cut spending by a total of about $91 million per year, counting the new reductions and other “staffing initiatives” rolled out since last June.
“These actions will be painful for many people, including those whose positions are eliminated and those who will be working even harder to care for this great system and its patients,” Migoya wrote. “We are making every attempt to be sensitive to the emotional nature of these changes, including the continued availability of our employee assistance program and offering transition support services for impacted employees.”
He expressed his confidence “that Jackson will emerge as a stronger and more nimble organization that is better positioned to reach its strategic goals.”
Editor's note: This story has been updated to give the correct amount in salary that Migoya estimated his plan will save.
