Opinion: Mount Nittany Medical Center needs ‘surge response instead of job cuts’
The American Association of University Professors-Penn State Chapter, supports SEIU (Service Employees International Union) Healthcare Pennsylvania’s petition to Mount Nittany Medical Center calling for hospital administrators to halt plans to lay off 250 essential employees during the COVID-19 global pandemic. This cut is significant, constituting 10% of the workforce at Mount Nittany. Not only will jobs and livelihoods be lost, devastating families and Centre County workers, these cuts will also diminish the life-saving care that nurses and hospitals provide during the pandemic.
Cutting positions puts patients with other health needs at risk for degraded service. Nurses represented by SEIU say the hospital has notified them that their positions may be included in the layoff. Additionally, hospital spokespeople maintain that management is planning on cutting clinical and support employees.
As workers ourselves (whose lives depend on the services that MNMC workers provide) we cannot imagine a clinical or support worker who is expendable during the pandemic or in its aftermath. We, too, support SEIU as fellow workers concerned about employers sacrificing jobs, salaries and benefits rather than seeking alternative solutions to balance budgets and retain long-term resilience for the community. We join with SEIU in demanding that management consider alternatives to the drastic job cuts.
COVID-19 is a global pandemic that’s already taken the lives of more than 150,000 Americans — including Penn State student Juan Garcia. Thus, it’s vital to provide health care workers with resources they require, rather than cutting their resources. MNMC workers need full and adequate PPE (personal protective equipment) and enough shift breaks and time off to be able to maintain their high level of performance. Centre County residents depend on MNMC to ensure the long-term health of those who live, work, and study at Penn State and beyond. Our lives are invaluable.
The continued health of the State College and Penn State communities is also a prerequisite for central Pennsylvania’s continued economic survival. Laying off 10% of Mount Nittany’s workforce will severely diminish the quality and availability of essential care in this region. With Penn State’s plans to reopen to 46,000 students this fall, a reduction in critical staff at MNMC creates a potentially deadly scenario. To survive this pandemic with our lives and economy intact, we need precisely the opposite plan, a surge response instead of job cuts.
We, the Penn State Chapter of the AAUP, urge president and CEO Kathleen Rhine and hospital administrators to work with SEIU representatives to find alternative solutions that protect essential worker jobs. The Penn State AAUP chapter stands with SEIU, urging administration to engage in good faith negotiations to preserve jobs of essential health care workers.