MVHS plans job cuts, furloughs, closure of Faxton Urgent Care to deal with pandemic financial losses

UTICA, N.Y. — Mohawk Valley Health System (MVHS) announced plans for job cuts, “extended or new” furloughs, and the closure of Faxton Urgent Care as it deals with COVID-19-related financial losses.

That’s according to a message the MVHS president and CEO Darlene Stromstad sent to MVHS employees and medical staff about the situation.

The cost-cutting measures are part of a “revenue recovery and restructuring program to realign services with changing community needs, right size the organization, redefine priority focus areas and have a strong, skilled workforce to serve our community,” per Stromstad’s message.

The Faxton Urgent Care closure is part of the plans for “consolidation and changes in services and schedules,” Stromstad said. She also noted that telehealth services for the Urgent Care location will be available until Aug. 31

MVHS is also freezing open positions “except for those that are deemed essential.” The plan also extends the four-month recovery plan’s requirements for decreased discretionary spending and freezing nonessential capital expenditures.

MVHS said it’s holding talks with the unions, United Food & Commercial Workers and Communications Workers of America (or CWA) about the impact on their membership.

In her message, Stromstad told the employees that the plan seeks to address an “uncertain” time for the organization.

She said patient and medical-procedure volumes have improved since the worst of the coronavirus crisis, but not all the way.

“And, while are our volumes are increasing slowly, we are uncertain if they will ever go back to what they were, and in some areas, we are seeing little to no volume. To put this in perspective, even if we operate at 85 percent of our pre-COVID volumes, we will sustain monthly losses of between $5 [million] and $7 million per month, or about $86 million a year. Clearly this is not sustainable,” she noted.

The economic toll this pandemic has taken on health-care facilities has been “enormous,” per Stromstad’s message.

“For MVHS, the federal relief funding and our four-month recovery plan stabilized our financial situation for the short-term but will not be enough to sustain us over the long-term. To date, we have received a little more than $30 million in federal financial aid, but are projecting continuing losses due to lower volumes in our services and additional expenses for [personal protective equipment, or] PPE and other items to stay prepared for a potential resurgence of COVID-19,” she said.

Stromstad added that MVHS will share more details “in the coming weeks.”