CHI St. Luke’s is closing 4 facilities

CHI St. Luke’s Health system has or will be closing four facilities and laying off 89 workers at locations in The Woodlands and Conroe, according to a letter from the Texas Workforce Commission.

They announced that the CHI St. Luke’s Health Woodlands Ambulatory Surgery Center closed on Jan. 27, and its seven employees will be laid off effective next month.

In addition, the health system’s emergency center in The Woodlands will close on March 3 and 29 employees will lose their jobs. The same day, the CHI St. Luke’s Health Pinecroft is closing its pharmacy, sleep lab and laboratories, also in The

Woodlands, and 27 people there will be laid off.

The CHI St. Luke’s Health Conroe Emergency Center will also be closing its entire facility on March 3, and 26 people will be laid off.

This latest round of cuts comes on the heels of an announcement just more than a month ago by the Denver-based health system that 202 employees will be laid off at three Texas systems, although those locations were not made public.

CHI St. Luke’s spokesman Josh Snellgrove on Tuesday cited CHI’s acquisition of the Greater Houston Physicians Medical Association and said the chain decided that it was duplicating some services in The Woodlands and Conroe.

“In an effort to ensure appropriate use of resources, the decision was made to cease operations at the Woodlands Emergency Center and the Conroe Emergency Center effective (last) Friday,” Snellgrove said in a written statement.

CHI operates 104 hospitals in 19 states, including eight in the Houston area. The health care system has been struggling financially in the past years, according to previously published reports.

This announcement of layoffs is the latest blow to the Houston area’s typically vibrant health care economy.

Last month Memorial Hermann Health System laid off 112 employees, mostly managers.

That layoff affected a sliver of its overall 25,000-employee workforce. But it came days after CHI St.Luke’s announced layoffs and the University of Texas MD Anderson’s announcement that it was laying off 778 employees as part of an overall staff reduction of about 1,000 people.

The MD Anderson staff reduction, about 5 percent of its total workforce, followed continuing operating losses at the cancer center.