Responds to UCI Hospital Protests : Layoffs Won’t Affect Care, Chancellor Says

UC Irvine Chancellor Jack Peltason said Thursday that layoffs at UCI Medical Center “will not affect the quality of patient care” there, including treatment of a large percentage of the county’s poor.

Hospital workers Wednesday charged that the result of the layoffs would be fewer services for the poor and that patient care overall would suffer. The medical center announced Wednesday that 104 staff positions, including 40 for registered nurses, are being eliminated. Officials said the layoffs are necessary because the medical center is running at a deficit, estimated for this year at $6 million to $9 million.

But Peltason emphasized that the layoffs will not endanger any patient at the hospital.

“I’m not saying there won’t be more delays and possibly more paper work for the indigent,” he said. “And indigent patients will not be in as nice rooms as the private pay patients, but they’ll be treated by the same doctors, operated on by the same surgeons and cared for by the same nurses.”

Peltason added that no further staff cuts are foreseen for the immediate future, but he added that he could not rule out more layoffs down the road.

No More Cuts

“We don’t have any more (cuts) at the moment, but it will depend on future circumstances,” he said. “I hope we’re at the bottom of our cuts.”

Peltason reemphasized that the medical center, located in Orange, will continue to lose millions until it is modernized to attract a larger percentage of private-pay patients. He noted that care for 70% of UCI Medical Center patients is government-subsidized; 57% of those are indigent and the rest are covered by Medicare.

Peltason said government reimbursements for indigent patients are no longer adequate to meet the costs of treating them. According to hospital officials, the average difference is about $200 a day for each patient.

Nonetheless, Peltason said, no indigent patient in genuine need of health care will be turned away. But, he added, “we will be checking more thoroughly on emergency admittances because not every person who comes in there is a real emergency case.”

Peltason said he will go before the Board of Regents, “probably in about three months, with a plan on how (the modernization) can be done.”

In the meantime, he said, he must honor his pledge to the regents to continue cutting costs at the medical center, even if that means reducing the staff.