GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Mercy Health and Saint Joseph Mercy Health System will be seeing staffing changes after July 1. The move is by what was described in a release as “significant pandemic-related challenges.”
The health system includes five hospitals, including Mercy Health St. Mary's in Grand Rapids and Mercy Health Mercy Campus in Muskegon, and numerous other treatment locations.
“Our mission is to be a transforming and healing presence in our communities, and we are making painful but necessary decisions to ensure that we can sustain our organization into the future,” said Robert Casalou, president and CEO of Trinity Health Michigan, in a release.
Casalou noted that the number of patients the system is seeing is on the rise, but revenues have been dropping.
“As we ramped up to support inpatients afflicted with COVID-19 and effectively shut down outpatient and elective services during stay-at-home orders, our revenues fell and operational costs increased,” he explained.
The kinds of jobs affected are described as non-clinical and administrative positions. Some staff have already been on furlough and may see their time away from their jobs extended. The number of positions eliminated or reduced was not available in the Mercy Health release, but reports published elsewhere mentioned 1,000 jobs.
