Independence Health System announces 151 positions will be eliminated, 81 impacted this week
More than 150 positions at Independence Health System have been, or will be, cut since the start of the year, including 81 employees who will be impacted this week.
The health system’s “cost containment effort” prompts the elimination of 151 positions — the equivalent of 122 full-time employees or about 2% of system’s 7,300-person team, according to a statement issued Wednesday, April 9, by the health system.
It was not immediately known what locations or types of positions will be affected.
The 81 impacted this week can expect transfers to vacant roles or for their roles to be terminated.
“Over the past two years, we have made meaningful progress — cutting our losses nearly in half from 2023 to 2024,” Kelley Skoloda, chief marketing and communications officer at Independence Health System said in the statement. “But despite these efforts, like many health systems, we continue to face unrelenting and unprecedented financial and operational pressures — both within health care and across the broader economy. We must continue to make difficult but necessary decisions.
“One of those decisions is a reduction in our workforce.”
Tammy May, president of the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals nurses union at Butler Memorial Hospital, called the timing “ironic.”
She noted how the union had held a picket in March amid contract negotiations and how a separate group of 240 employees — radiology and surgical technicians among others — had filed plans to start their own union Monday with the National Labor Relations Board.
“It could have been the plan all along, but when it’s all so coincidental, it makes you wonder,” she said.
She said she doesn’t know which departments will yet be affected.
Skoloda said acting decisively amid the system’s financial challenges will protect the system’s future.
“We owe it to our patients and our communities to preserve and strengthen the health system relied on by so many for expert care, here,” she said.
According to a previous Butler Eagle report, in the 12-month period ending on Dec. 31, Butler Health System sustained an operating loss of $23.24 million. While still a loss, this marks an improvement over the same 12-month period ending a year earlier, in which Butler Health lost $36.9 million.
The health systems that merged to create Independence Health System, Butler and Excela, continue to file separate financial statements.
