As coronavirus costs mount, St. Elizabeth’s Hospital owner announces furloughs
Springfield-based Hospital Sisters Health System, which operates St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in O’Fallon, announced Thursday that it will furlough employees as hospitals deal with the financial impact of the coronavirus pandemic in which over 2,300 people have died in Illinois.
The hospital system did not disclose which hospitals will have furloughs or the number of employees affected.
Illinois hospitals are losing $1.4 billion a month in revenue because of COVID-19 costs, including canceled elective surgeries and procedures as well as fewer people going to the emergency room because of virus fears, according to Danny Chun, spokesman for the Illinois Hospital Association.
Statewide, hospitals usually have revenue of $3.2 billion a month, Chun said.
Along with St. Elizabeth’s, HSHS also operates St. Joseph’s Hospital in Breese and St. Joseph’s Hospital in Highland. It has 12 other hospitals in Illinois and Wisconsin.
HSHS said there are both voluntary and involuntary furloughs, but the announcement did not say how long the furloughs would last or which types of positions are affected.
Patti Fischer, president and CEO of the St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, could not be reached for comment on Thursday.
Sara Wojcicki Jimenez, the HSHS division director of marketing, communication and advocacy, released the following statement:
“The COVID-19 pandemic has had a rapid and dramatic impact on health care. In order to continue to serve our mission long into the future, HSHS had to make significant changes in our organization which included voluntary and involuntary furloughs of our colleagues. We remain fully committed to continuously improving the lives of our patients and the communities we serve well into the future.”
The announcement by HSHS follows one by St. Louis-based SSM Health, which said on Monday that it would furlough 2,000 employees.
The number of SSM furloughs in the metro-east was not released. SSM Health operates doctors and physical therapy offices throughout southern Illinois and the St. Louis region.
Federal aid for hospitals
Chun said the economic stimulus legislation signed by President Donald Trump has provided $175 billion to hospitals nationwide.
“We are very appreciative of that but it’s not going to make up for the losses,” Chun said. “It’s a start but hospitals are still facing huge financial challenges.”
Chun said Illinois hospitals have seen a 30% to 50% drop in inpatient cases and a 50% to 70% drop in outpatient procedures.
“So that is putting tremendous financial pressures on hospitals and many are implementing furloughs as one way to deal with the financial pressures,” he said.
The Illinois Department of Public Health said hospitals can resume elective surgeries beginning May 11, but Chun said hospitals must comply with several requirements before they can start the elective work.
“It’s going to take time to get back toward normal; I don’t know if we’ll ever be normal again,” he said.
The canceled and postponed elective surgeries and procedures included hip and knee replacements and even cancer treatments. Hospitals stopped this kind of health care because they followed the state’s guidelines to prepare for the surge in COVID-19 patients, Chun said.
Chun said the association has not collected the number of furloughs hospitals have made statewide.
This story was originally published April 30, 2020 at 1:27 PM.
