The Carondelet Health Network, which earlier this year went from a non-profit to for-profit company, has laid off three percent of its workforce, officials confirmed today.
The number of employees in the Southern Arizona Catholic hospital chain who are losing their jobs amounts to about 100 people, spokeswoman Kate Maguire Jensen said.
She would not say what departments of the company were affected.
Carondelet is a majority owned by Tenet Healthcare of Texas, which acquired the company earlier this year. Minority owners are Dignity Health of California and Ascension of Missouri.
The local hospital chain has two hospitals in Tucson - Carondelet St. Mary's and Carondelet St. Joseph's, as well as a hospital in Nogales, Arizona - Carondelet Holy Cross.
The following is the media statement Jensen sent to the Star today:
"We have been carefully evaluating staffing levels over the past several months as part of an effort to identify opportunities to achieve efficiencies across our system. To get our cost structure in line with industry standards, we have made the very difficult decision to reduce approximately three percent of the Carondelet workforce by the end of this week. We believe it will strengthen the networkβs ability for long term success as a high quality healthcare provider in the region.
We worked very hard to minimize the number of affected employees by first eliminating open positions and realigning certain job functions. In approaching these reductions, we focused primarily on improving efficiencies in administrative and related roles with careful attention to avoid affecting direct patient care areas.
We are assisting impacted employees in applying for new positions within our system, transferring to sister facilities, as well as connecting them with other potential employment opportunities within the area. We did not make these decisions lightly and these changes are difficult for us all, but these staffing reductions will allow us to operate more efficiently and position the network for the future."
