Some 480 of Detroit Medical Center's nearly 12,000 employees, or 4% of its workforce, have been furloughed to address a downturn in business from the state's coronavirus-related stay-at-home order and halt of many elective procedures, a top DMC executive said Wednesday.
"Some hospital units — which are not related to the COVID-19 crisis or other critical patient care needs — have been temporarily closed or ramped down," DMC CEO Audrey Gregory said in a statement. "We have taken steps to divert additional resources to COVID-19 care and other urgent medical procedures that cannot be deferred. This includes reducing costs, and hours worked, and implementing furloughs of certain jobs, where needed."
Gregory said DMC will continue to provide furloughed workers with their existing medical and other benefits. DMC also is offering information to affected employees so they may access enhanced state unemployment benefits available to them.
"Our expectation is that we can return impacted staff to service once we navigate through this unprecedented time and our core business gets back to normal," she said.
Gregory said there will be no changes to direct bedside nursing care for COVID-19 patients or emergency or medically necessary care access for patients with other medical conditions.
On April 1, Trinity Health Michigan announced it would furlough about 2,500 employees and cut executive pay as it deals with the financial impact from the coronavirus on its eight hospitals, medical centers and other healthcare facilities in Michigan.
Another 1,500 of the Catholic healthcare company's approximately 28,000 staff and employees in Michigan will be redeployed to other jobs as required to address effects the coronavirus is having on the health system's workforce, Crain's reported.
Meanwhile, Henry Ford Health System and several Ascension Health hospitals have instituted hazard pay for frontline nurses and other healthcare workers.
Henry Ford COO Bob Riney said Tuesday that a range of frontline workers are receiving unspecified amount of hazard pay.
Sources at Ascension Health told Crain's that some nurses are getting $20 more per hour, respiratory technicians another $10-per-hour pay bump and other contract support employees an extra $2 per hour.
A DMC official said he wasn't aware of any hazard pay for DMC frontline workers.
Crain's has asked other health systems in Southeast Michigan about layoffs or hazard pay increases.
"DMC furloughs workers, following Trinity Health, as revenue crunch hits hospitals" originally appeared in Crain's Detroit Business.
