Recently, Roosevelt General Hospital (RGH) announced facing financial hardships due to increased staffing and a rise of supplies and equipment the hospital invested in during the pandemic. Other issues such an increase in insurance premiums, supply/chain challenges causing significant prices, and overdue payments from payees have placed the hospital in a peculiar scenario which led administrators to decrease employees work week from 40 hours to 32. However, in the past week, great strides have been made and frontline staff returned to their normal 40-hour work week. Other employees, such as directors and executives, remain on the 32-hour work week until further notice.
CEO, Kaye Green, stated, “During the pandemic, we made investments to increase staff, plus we purchased additional supplies and equipment to meet the demands during COVID. All this was done to keep the community healthy and safe during the pandemic. RGH did receive federal and state supplemental funding towards this effort. Now, with the pandemic behind us, those supplemental funds are no longer available. We must right-size our organization based on current patient volume and the increased costs we are experiencing.”
The pandemic left many hospitals across the nation in similar circumstances. Green states, “Most other hospitals throughout the state and nation are also making similar reductions.”
Hospital administrators and leaders at RGH continue to closely monitor expenses and revenue. And have placed specific guidelines on future purchasing and staffing to protect the hospital’s financial viability.