The nation's largest public health system late last week eliminated 476 management positions.
NYC Health & Hospitals let go 396 managers on June 2 and said another 80 unfilled positions will be eliminated. The health system said 98 employees will have the opportunity to return to their pre-management positions, if they so choose. The layoffs come after 70 employees were let go in February. The system has more than 40,000 employees.
Interim President and CEO Stanley Brezenoff called the layoffs "a difficult but necessary action to help build a stronger, more agile and more stable public healthcare delivery system." He maintained the restructuring would not affect services, patient care, quality or safety at the health system.
The cuts are expected to net $60 million in personnel savings in fiscal 2018 as NYC Health & Hospitals transitions from a "hospital-centric" organization to a system focused on wellness, prevention and outpatient care, the health system said.
NYC Health & Hospitals reported a $776 million operating loss for the first half of fiscal 2017, which grew by nearly 85% over 2015.