Alameda County Medical Center Board of Supervisors Votes To Cut Almost 350 Jobs
The Alameda County Medical Center Board of Trustees on Monday approved a proposal recommended by a team of consultants to eliminate the equivalent of almost 350 full-time staff positions to address "its struggle with a projected $73 million deficit," the Contra Costa Times reports. A team from Tennessee-based consulting firm Cambio Health Solutions was hired to work for 18 months for $3.2 million to review ACMC's operations after the board dropped its own plan to cut costs (Tascio, Contra Costa Times, 4/27). In December, the board approved $23 million in budget cuts, including measures to require that uninsured patients in Alameda County seeking nonurgent care at all county-run hospitals qualify for Medi-Cal or another health plan or sign a document agreeing to pay part of the cost of care; to eliminate 176 full-time positions; to possibly close some hospital wards; to lay off other employees; and to eliminate some specialty services (California Healthline, 1/21). At a meeting held at Highland Hospital in Oakland, board members said that budget cuts could be reevaluated while the proposal is implemented during the next 45 to 90 days. According to the Times, "[d]ozens of medical center employees blasted the board before the vote for considering cuts without first fixing what some said is a dysfunctional organization." Cambio did not present the board with a dollar amount for how much the elimination of staff positions and other recommendations would save because they said they wanted the board's approval before working on an estimate(Contra Costa Times, 4/27).
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