Painful staff reduction at Sharon Hospital

One of the most difficult things any business or organization must do is downsize, or “right-size”, as Sharon Hospital’s president and CEO Kimberly Lumia put it, referring to the 26 people who were laid off last week at the hospital by her administration and management. There are no easy answers to fiscal problems, and when the decision has to be made to reduce expenses, it is human beings, not numbers, who suffer, as all those at the hospital understand right now.Many businesses have had to face this kind of reality since the recession hit four years ago. But with some economic indicators looking up, such as the unemployment rate and the value of the stock market, one could have been lulled into thinking such actions as mass layoffs are now behind us. The action that had to be taken at the hospital brought home the fact that our financial woes are not over.It is not only the employees who were laid off and their coworkers left behind who will be affected by the termination of 26 people, coming to a total of 40.3 full time equivalent hours, or FTEs. It is also those who use the hospital for their health care, the patients at the hospital, some of whom have been under the care of those who were laid off, who will feel their loss. Surely the morale at the hospital will be at risk now, both among the staff who remain and the patients who receive care there, especially on a regular basis. It will be a difficult time for all to get through. If the hospital is to survive, however, as Lumia noted when interviewed last week (see story, Page A1), the community needs to use and support the hospital and its facilities. As the only for-profit hospital in Connecticut, Sharon Hospital faces a unique challenge when it comes to expenses. More than a million dollars in taxes were paid by Sharon Hospital in 2011, a cost that their competition, the other hospitals in the state, does not face. However, Sharon Hospital is also now required to pay about an additional $700,000 because of a new “provider tax” on health-care providers in the state, part of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s budget changes looking for new revenues for the state.It’s understood that all kinds of painful steps have had to be taken in order to bring the state budget into balance, but at what cost? All hospitals are suffering due to the fluctuating volumes cited by Lumia and the problems with bad debt, both of which are influenced by the recession and its lingering repercussions. But to almost double the amount of tax to only one institution hardly seems fair. Couldn’t some amount of the taxes already paid by the for-profit Sharon Hospital count toward their responsibility for the provider tax? Do our legislators really want to drive one large employer to have to take the drastic step of slashing more jobs in the state or face unsustainable losses going forward?If the Malloy administration cares about retaining jobs in the state, rather than just attracting new ones, they should take careful note of these layoffs, and consult with this area’s legislators on a second look at the provider tax and the way it is levied on institutions in Connecticut.