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WSWS : News & Analysis : North America
Detroit Medical Center announces job cuts
By Andrea Grant-Friedman
13 January, 1999
Facing financial losses that some estimate at greater than $100 million
dollars, last week the Detroit Medical Center announced the layoff of up to
2,000 workers. The jobs cuts are scheduled to take place as early as the
end of this month, and the DMC says that temporary workers and those facing
disciplinary action will be the first to go.
DMC is the Detroit area's largest private employer, and the layoff
announcement follows several months of financial turmoil. David Campbell,
the top executive of the health system, resigned his position in December.
The impetus for both Campbell's resignation as well as the recent layoffs
came at the prompting of an independent consulting firm, the Hunter Group,
hired by the DMC to aid in the process of "reorganization." The recent
layoffs will only comprise a small portion of what the DMC announced last
year will be budget cuts approximating $150 million in the next year and a
half.
An employee at the Kresge Eye Institute, affiliated with Wayne State
University yet located in a DMC-run hospital, made the following
observation: "Two thousand layoffs are a lot of people. I don't think they
are thinking about the effect this is going to have on the people and their
families. I read that they are planning to lay off the temporary workers
first, followed by getting rid of those who have had disciplinary problems.
I don't think that is correct. A supervisor will say that you are not doing
your job correctly and use it as an opportunity to get rid of people. I
just thank God that I am working for Wayne State University and not the
DMC."
DMC officials maintain, as in the words of executive vice president David
Coats, that "patient care will not be affected." However, DMC employees
have a different view. Dan, an orthopedist, said, "I don't know how they
are going to manage it. Everyone is already working short staff. What are
they going to cut? Nurses? Maintenance? Already we are working without heat
in our office."
This sentiment is not limited to physicians. Tim Musial, a carpenter at
Detroit Receiving Hospital, said that the staff he works with is "already
down to a skeleton crew as it is. Presently one person is doing the job of
two or three. I have been working here for 11 years and I fear that I may
be one of the ones that are laid off. Maintenance is already very short."
Further decisions regarding the state of the DMC remain to be made.
However, there is a general expectation that the recent job restructuring
will be only the beginning of a process that could result in the closure of
area hospitals or a merger with another health system. The growing cuts in
Medicare and Medicaid funding nationwide, intrinsic to the downsizing and
an overall decline in patient care occurring throughout the public health
system, are major contributing factors to the current state of financial
affairs of the DMC. Moreover, there is no doubt that the DMC is obliged to
compete with area hospitals whose performance hovers around the 4 percent
profit rate standard for the industry.
Joseph, another employee at the Kresge Eye institute, said that he didn't
think "they want a quality system. They just want to make money."
Considering the financial losses confronting the Detroit Medical Center
there is little doubt that the layoffs witnessed this past week are only a
small indication of what is to come.
See Also:
Winter storm exposes social chasm in Detroit
City services at standstill one week later
{12 January 1999]
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