CHI ST. JOSEPH IN BRYAN ANNOUNCES 31 LAYOFFS

  

St. Joseph’s in Bryan-College Station announced on Thursday that it eliminated 31 jobs at the hospital, as part of a reduction that cut 620 positions across the Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI) workforce.  

The reduction includes 459 layoffs and 161 vacant positions across 17 hospitals, as well as CHI’s employed physician network and other assets.

CHI Texas Division includes CHI St. Luke's Health in Houston, CHI St. Luke's Health Memorial in Lufkin and CHI St. Joseph Health in Bryan. CHI St. Luke's Health Memorial was reportedly not affected by the cutbacks.

"Like other hospital systems here in Texas and across the nation, we recently announced that we are working to restructure the CHI Texas Division to respond to continued changes in the healthcare environment” said CHI in a statement on Thursday.

The announcement came as the nation's two largest credit-rating services downgraded the debt ratings of CHI. On March 21st, Moody's Investors Services cut the long-term debt rating to Baa1 from A3. The health care company was also assigned a "negative" outlook.  Three weeks prior, S&P Global Ratings cut the rating from an A- to a BBB+.

CHI also reported operating losses of $483 million in fiscal year 2016.

According to the Houston Chronicle, one analyst blamed the hospital chain's rapid growth over the past five years for the financial trouble.

"While we have made significant improvements the past few months, we must continue to institute critical organizational changes to further realign our financial performance to sustain and grow our network of care across southeast Texas” the statement continued.

In January, another significant medical workforce reduction was announced when the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center said it would cut 1,000 jobs, which equals about 5 percent of its workforce.