The London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) will be slashing staff hours and implementing a hiring freeze as it looks to rein in a multi-million dollar deficit.
Southwestern Ontario's largest hospital network announced Tuesday the equivalent of 165 full-time positions will be lost through a dramatic reduction in staff hours. That is a cut of 1.6 per cent of the hospital's workforce.
The hospital hopes to mitigate the effects of these cuts on staff through a temporary hiring freeze of non-clinical staff, natural attrition, and voluntary exits of non-union employees.
The exact number of possible layoffs, if any, are not known at this time, according to a statement from the hospital.
LHSC ended its last fiscal year with a $24 million deficit and now has to find additional savings of approximately $28 million or roughly two per cent from its $1.2 billion 2019/2020 budget.
"As tough as it is to have to announce saving strategies, that include worked hours reductions, this is part of LHSC configuring itself through investments and through changing how we actually deliver services in order to be better going forward in the new Ontario health system," said LHSC President and CEO Dr. Paul Woods. "The focus and priority on all of these efforts are on maintaining patient safety and quality of care delivered. That is considered sacred and what we are trying to do is look at non-clinical staff, which would be administrative support or support services and leadership reduction all the way up to executives."
All departments within the hospital network have been asked to find saving strategies equal to two per cent to 2.5 per cent of their budget. Additional savings are expected to be found by increasing efficiency in the hospital's clinical operations.
While hospitals in Ontario received $384 million or 2.05 per cent in additional funding in the Ford government's inaugural budget in April, it was less than the 3.45 per cent increase the Ontario Hospital Association had recommended. That shortfall is also taking some of the blame for the significant belt-tightening effort at the LHSC.
"There would not have been the same urgency, but I think that any business in doing their duties would be wise to always look at are we right-sized, are we staffing appropriately, are we making investments in the right place," said Woods. " I think that the funding challenges has lent some urgency to it, but I don't think it is bad practice for any organization to be constantly challenging itself in that regard."
Neil Johnson, LHSC chief business operations officer stressed the newly announced cuts are part of a bigger plan to balance the hospital's budget within three years.
"The entire planning exercise includes our three-year recovery plan to get to a balanced position and also a series of significant investments," said Johnson. "We really feel it is important to invest in the long-term health of our organization so we have approved over $100 million in investments over the next five years in things like medical imaging, CTs, MRIs, interventional radiology, our facilities, and then our digital health platform too."
