Salem Hospital is not a name that many of us know. For those of you who are not familiar with the facility lets begin by looking at how the company describes itself, “Salem Health as the parent organization for Salem Hospital, West Valley Hospital, and other health services, has as its stated mission: To improve the health and well-being of the people and communities we serve. The mission expresses our reason for being and the ultimate purpose for this tax-exempt, healthcare organization…. The patient experience reflects these values. All who align their professional or clinical services with or work within Salem Health are asked to adhere to standards of behavior based on these values. We base our decision-making on these values. Further, our recruitment efforts rely not only on selecting individuals with outstanding expertise and experience but on the talents stemming from these values that must be inherent in those who represent Salem Health day in and day out, in all they do to provide the healthcare services everyone deserves.”

Apparently the company believes that it can do so without 52 of its workers. Salem Hospital is just about ready to cut back on the workers, according to a filing that they made with the Oregon state board of employment. For the time being the company has not provided a list of the positions to be cut exactly, but those close to the hospital are expecting that the cuts will come from the pediatric facilities in the hospital.

For a company that employs about 4,000 people currently these cuts are not massive in terms of a percentage of jobs to be cut from the hospital, but it is still a notable amount. 52 workers are more than enough to qualify as a mass layoff action under the current federal guidelines. For those of you who are not familiar with the idea of a mass layoff action here is a look at how the federal government defines the term, “Monthly mass layoff numbers are from establishments which have at least 50 initial claims for unemployment insurance (UI) filed against them during a 5-week period. Extended mass layoff numbers (issued quarterly) are from a subset of such establishments—where private sector nonfarm employers indicate that 50 or more workers were separated from their jobs for at least 31 days.” Because this is a mass layoff the workers will be given some extra time to adjust to the impending loss of their jobs, though the company has not said exactly how much time they are going to give to the soon to be displaced workers to adjust and prepare their resumes.

The job cuts are expected to come from the pediatrics department because this is one of the least used parts of the hospital. The facility, outside of emergent care issues, is not know for its pediatric care and most parents choose other facilities when they need to get their children treated. The management may be hoping that cuts to this area will be less noticed by the bulk of the patient population.