Lincoln hospital to cut 10 positions
Penobscot Valley Hospital, a small 25-bed hospital in Lincoln, will cut 10 full-time positions from its 210-member staff in the next two weeks due to a variety of factors, the Bangor Daily News reported.
Reasons for the cost-cutting include $1.2 million in operating losses the hospital has sustained since 2012, the declining population in the Lincoln region, the state’s failure to expand Medicaid coverage, a reduction from 100% to 65% in state payments of Medicare bad debts, an increase in the number of high-deductible health insurance plans and the loss of an estimated 937 jobs from the closing of the Lincoln and Old Town paper mills late last year, CEO Gary Poquette told the paper.
According to a 2013 report by the Maine Hospital Association, hospitals and the health care industry as a whole are important players in the Maine economy. The report cites the Maine Department of Labor, which says health care and social assistance is the state’s largest economic sector in terms of number of jobs and wages paid. The health care sector in Maine represents 21% of private employment and 22% of wages paid in the private sector. Some 34%, or 36,400 people, of those employed in health care work for Maine hospitals.
And hospital jobs are relatively well-paid, with average hourly wages for practitioners and support workers at $36 and $13, respectively, compared with a statewide average hourly wage of $19. Maine hospitals contribute $2.3 billion in wages and benefits directly to the Maine economy, and indirectly fund another $1.5 billion in wages and benefits.
According to its website, Penobscot Valley Hospital, in a rural landscape 45 minutes north of Bangor, has been serving the community for over 40 years.
Hospital Chief Financial Officer Ann Marie Rush told the BDN that the layoffs or attrition cuts “would be something that has to happen immediately. If somebody plans on leaving at the end of the year, that wouldn’t be counted towards the goal.”
Hospital officials have developed a strategic plan with the Lincoln Lakes region’s other large medical provider, Health Access Network of Lincoln, to help both continue to survive.
Poquette said other area towns must work together if the economic and population losses that forced the hospital’s layoffs are to be reversed.
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