The odds are that you have probably not heard about St. Elizabeth Ann’s Health Care & Rehabilitation Center unless you know someone who has stayed there. For the rest of us here is a look at how the center describes itself:

“Established is 1993, St. Elizabeth Ann’s Healthcare & Rehabilitation Center is one of the largest and most skilled nursing and rehabilitation centers on Staten Island.  But we are more than a local nursing facility.  We are a series of specialized centers for nursing care.  Our high quality services are sought by families and health care agencies throughout the region.

People who come to St. Elizabeth Ann’s know they are seeing the most skilled nursing team.  We offer comprehensive, specialized care that often is unique and always provides the best for our residents.”

Well it looks like they are going to have to provide that care without 55 registered nurses. While compared to some of the large layoffs that we have seen from health care facilities in the past, this may not sound like much of a cut. When you consider however that the facility only employed 60 registered nurses before the cuts you can see that this is more than an 80% cut to the nursing staff. The nurses who remain are assigned to patients who are on ventilators.

Of course St. Elizabeth Ann’s Healthcare & Rehabilitation Center is by far not the only facility to experience cuts to their staff as a way to make the budget fit the amount of dollars available in a market where fewer people are seeking health care services. Some of you may have caught our earlier coverage of the layoffs of members of the clinical staff at Jackson Health System, but for those of you who did catch it here is an excerpt that will get you up to speed:

“More bad news is coming to health care workers and this time it is the workers of the Jackson Health System. The Jackson Health System, which is located in the Miami area, is getting ready to get rid of a number of jobs. At the current moment the Chief Executive of the hospital system, Carlos Migoya, is not giving out a lot of details on the specifics. He would say that the company is looking into making cuts in each of its departments in order to find out where the cuts can be made. The hospital was quick to stress the fact that there will be no impact to patient care. They hope to have more details in about the cuts in the next two weeks.

The health system is attributing the cut back of staff to a drop in the number of patients that are coming to the facilities. Most notably was the delay in care given, choosing outpatient procedures instead of staying in the hospital and shorter stays in the hospital over all. With fewer patients the facility not only has less revenue, but also as they see it, creates a need for a smaller staff. At the current moment union leaders are not issuing any official statements about the decision to make the job cuts. They may be waiting to find out how many jobs are being cut and what kinds of positions are being let go before they talk to the hospital leaders or the media.”