Kris Burleigh, a unit coordinator in the emergency department at PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center in Vancouver, Washington, was enjoying the final day of a vacation in April when her phone rang: After more than 24 years of work, she was told, she was being laid off. 

“I truly did not see this one coming,” Burleigh said. 

Burleigh, whose last day of work at PeaceHealth Southwest is set for June 21, is one of more than 100 employees at PeaceHealth who are losing their jobs as the health system cuts 1 percent of its total workforce of roughly 16,000.

The majority of the job cuts, the health system has said, are coming at the Southwest Medical Center in Vancouver and the PeaceHealth Sacred Heart at RiverBend Medical Centers in Springfield, Oregon. PeaceHealth cited financial challenges as the catalyst for the layoffs.

Many of the workers losing their jobs are not nurses or physicians, but lab technicians, mobility aides, department coordinators, and a number of the other people who are critical to keep hospitals running effectively. 

Emma Nellor, a medical social worker at PeaceHealth Southwest whose last day of work is also June 21, said much of her job is dedicated to ensuring that patients who come into the hospital have the support they need to leave in a timely fashion. 

“We want to make sure [people] get sent out with the best possible supports in place,” Nellor said. “So we manage that—setting people up with home health, or, if they’re below their normal mobility levels, getting them into a skilled nursing facility.”

Nellor said that aside from financial concerns, there are other reasons why it’s important social workers be on hand to help people transition out of hospital settings: people’s mobility and mental health can deteriorate the longer they stay in the hospital, and some people need assistance to coordinate their transportation, living, and rehabilitation arrangements. 

Cutting the jobs of the people who help with those arrangements, Nellor said, will have a significant impact. 

“Patients are going to be in the hospital longer, they’re not going to be able to get the care they need as quickly, and then in turn, that puts a burden on our emergency unit if we aren’t able to discharge patients as quickly,” Nellor said. 

Longer hospital stays can have a series of downstream effects: Besides emergency units facing the potential of heavier care burdens, the hospital as a whole may be less able to take on new patients in need of care, which may in turn burden other area hospitals. 

Nellor, who joined Southwest Medical Center a year and a half ago, said she is one of seven people in her department being let go along with another social worker, two nurse care managers, and three care management assistants. 

In a statement provided to the Mercury, a spokesperson for PeaceHealth wrote that the organization decided to make the current round of cuts to its workforce after “months of discernment, financial analysis, and a thorough review of the dynamic healthcare market.”

“PeaceHealth is actively responding to the significant challenges faced by healthcare organizations across the US,” spokesperson Victoria Wilson wrote. “We are continuously working to broaden access and enhance the services we know our community members and caregivers need.”

Nellor said she was told that one of the reasons PeaceHealth has decided to slash its workforce is potential changes to Medicaid under the Trump administration. But no significant change to Medicaid has been implemented at this point, leaving union officials questioning whether PeaceHealth is using the threat of potential changes as cover.

Wilson did not directly address questions about what role, if any, potential changes to Medicaid had in PeaceHealth’s decision to make cuts. She did note that the organization is providing transitional support to workers who have lost their jobs and is working to reassign affected workers to open positions within PeaceHealth where possible.

A number of PeaceHealth workers have been similarly left in the dark about the specific reasons the organization has opted for layoffs. 

“We know it's the end of the budget year,” Shawna Ross, a sonographer at PeaceHealth Southwest and a bargaining chair with the Oregon Federation of Nurses & Health Professionals (OFNHP), said. “That’s all we know.”

Ross said her bargaining unit is set to meet with PeaceHealth this week to continue negotiations over severance packages for laid off workers. She also said PeaceHealth is set to restructure operations in its hospitals in the wake of the layoffs, but has yet to provide specifics. 

Burleigh said she’s received no explanation from PeaceHealth management about why her position is being eliminated, but she too fears the loss of department coordinators responsible for orchestrating the movements of emergency room doctors and nurses will have an impact beyond what is obvious to outside observers. 

“In the future, the staff will be spread too thin,” Burleigh said. “Who’s going to dig through the chart to get the correct cardiologist or the correct admitting doctor?”

Burleigh said that, in her opinion, the kind of cuts PeaceHealth is making suggests that they don’t have the necessary knowledge of how their hospitals actually run. 

“I think they just don't understand what we do, boots on the ground,” she said. “It’s just a lack of understanding and a lack of perspective. It feels like I’m just a title to them, or a number.”

To drive home their dissatisfaction, OFNHP members at PeaceHealth Southwest held a demonstration on Monday morning that included handing hospital management a piece of paper with the names of each laid off worker and explanations of the importance of each of those workers.

Confidence in PeaceHealth within the membership of OFNHP appears low: According to a survey conducted by the union, more than 90 percent of members believe the layoffs will negatively affect public health and more than half believe the layoffs could continue. 

Strife between PeaceHealth and its workers is not new: OFNHP-represented workers went on strike at PeaceHealth Southwest two years ago. Workers at a PeaceHealth hospital in Bellingham went on strike earlier this year. 

“Our whole goal is for patient care,” Ross said. “Our first duty and our first responsibility, and to be perfectly honest our first love, is the care we give to our patients—and we're holding onto that.”