Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center to Eliminate Hundreds of Jobs

Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center to Eliminate Hundreds of Jobs

November 14, 2012 | Audrey Fannin

Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center announced Wednesday that 76 employees will be laid off this week. CEO John McConnell says they’re the first of more than 900 total positions that will be wliminated by the end of June, but not all of those will mean employee layoffs. "Fortunately we’ve been able to achieve half of that by deleting vacancies, retirements and not renewing contracted labor," he says. "So that leaves 475 that will at least, as we’re looking at it now, actually require layoffs of individual people."

McConnell says the positions being eliminated are in areas such as Facilities, Information Technology and Finance. The cutbacks are the result of anticipated cuts, such as declines in reimbursements to hospitals and federal research grants.

McConnell says hospital care will not be affected. "The impact on quality care will be zero," he says. "We are protecting our very high nurse-to-patient ratios in the hospital. And there will be very little change in overall medical personnel, because so much of this is occurring in back office functions."

In a statement, WFUBMC said that employees who were notified this week will continue to receive their full pay and benefits through January 4th. After that, they will receive severance benefits and job search assistance.