Boston Medical Center to lay off or cut hours of 250 people

Boston Medical Center will lay off or cut the hours of 250 employees and reduce other spending to cope with cuts in payments from the state for the services it provides, the hospital announced this morning.

The job and hours cuts will eliminate the equivalent of 130 full-time positions, saving $10.5 million. The hospital has begun notifying staffers who will lose their jobs, hospital spokeswoman Ellen Berlin said in an interview. Clinical and administrative services are affected, including obstetrics, primary care, pediatrics, family medicine, geriatrics, laboratory, radiology, nursing, endoscopy, urology, and ophthalmology. Interpreter services, information techology, public safety, and dietary services are also seeing cuts.

The hospital is looking to save a total of $61.5 million. It has lost $114 million from lower state payments for Medicaid and other patients for fiscal 2009. More than half of Boston Medical Center's patients are low-income, for whose care the state pays 64 cents for each dollar in costs, the hospital said.

"When the state made the recent cuts to close the budget gap – and the administration cut Medicaid and health care funds as much as they did – Boston Medical Center felt more than its fair share of the pain,” Elaine Ullian, Boston Medical Center president and CEO, said in a statement.

BMC will also trim $14 million in non-salary support it provides to physicians, such as insurance coverage. And it will end its support of Quincy Medical Center, saving $2 million.

Capital spending will be cut by at least 35 percent and some major projects will be deferred to save $35 million.

More cuts are likely, the hospital said, even though the hospital is seeing record numbers of patients.