When it comes to hospitals there are a lot of people who think that when they have seen one then they have seen another. So before we talk about the layoffs to come lets begin by affording you some clarity and beginning by showing you how Alta Bates Summit Medical Center chooses to describe itself, “Alta Bates Summit Medical Center offers comprehensive services designed to meet the health care needs of the diverse communities of the greater East Bay Area. A Tertiary referral center, the medical center is the East Bay’s largest private, not-for-profit medical center and an affiliate of Sutter Health.”

Sadly for the patients of the facility the company is getting ready to cut back on a significant number of workers. They are cutting back on 370 jobs over two campuses in order to cut back on the costs associated with its staffing. This will be enough to qualify as at least one 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, “The Mass Layoff Statistics (MLS) program collects reports on mass layoff actions that result in workers being separated from their jobs. 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.”

Instead of highlighting the company’s most recent layoffs they instead used a recent press release to tout their achievements in the field of health education, “Alta Bates Summit Medical Center, a leading Cardiovascular Center of Excellence, and HeartValveSurgery.com, the largest online resource for patients with heart valve disease, will present a special community event to raise awareness and to educate the community about heart valve disorders on Tuesday, September 18, from 6:30 – 8  p.m. at the Lafayette Library and Learning Center, 3491 Mt. Diablo Blvd., Lafayette, CA.”

As you may have guessed this is not the only health care facility cutting back on workers. For those of you who missed out on our earlier coverage of cuts to jobs at Saint Thomas Health here is an excerpt that will get you up to speed in no time at all , “In this case the mass layoff will mean the loss of 150 jobs from the company, at two different locations. The bulk of the cuts, and the guaranteed mass layoff action will occur at Saint Thomas Hospital. That facility is taking about two-thirds of the cuts. The other facility, Baptist Hospital, will lose only about one-third of the 150 workers, making its status a mass layoff questionable for the time being. It is also possible that some of the jobs may be able to be cut through attrition. The only good news is that under the terms of a mass layoff action the workers must be given several weeks of notice before they can be cut from the payroll. So the workers have some time to adjust to the news.”