Staff infection
City hosps rip andy for hit to hiring
THE CITY is cutting hiring at its public hospital network — and blaming Gov. Cuomo for the cutbacks.
Health and Hospitals will fill only 25% of the 250 to 300 positions that typically open up at the hospitals each month, Stanley Brezenoff, the network’s acting leader, said in a letter to colleagues Thursday.
The news comes as the city and state squabble over $380 million in funding, half of which is from the federal government and half of which would be a city match.
The city has said it expected the cash, which reimburses the corporation for services going back to 2013, months ago. But the state says it won’t hand it over due to federal budget cuts that went into effect Oct. 1 because of congressional inaction.
“The state’s action to deny us these payments essentially translates into a large and completely unanticipated cut to our budget,” Brezenoff wrote. “The fact that it involves dollars that we were counting on for the services we already provided is beyond puzzling.”
While the federal cuts don’t effect the $380 million the city is seeking, state budget director Robert Mujica said that with the reductions coming, “the existing federal funds must now be managed into next year.” He also said 25 hospitals will be impacted.
“The suggestion that the state is somehow in a position to reverse federal cuts is willful political ignorance and a distortion of reality — only the federal government can possibly restore cuts they’ve enacted,” state Medicaid Director Jason Helgerson said in a statement. “Save for the federal government restoring these funds, there is no way the remaining . . . dollars can reimburse all hospitals at 100%.”
In his letter, Brezenoff noted the lost positions at the hospitals corporation will “have consequences for patients, for a number of services and for continuity of care.”
“The harsh truth is that this stricter hiring policy will only partially address the immediate challenge,” he wrote. “The longer this cut is in place, the more drastic action we will have to take to keep our doors open and protect our quality of care.”
The state has retained accountants KPMG to audit the hospital network.