Muni-hosp $ickbed

Bloody Friday layoffs due amid deficit

Nervous municipal-hospital managerial workers are bracing for a bloody Friday as word circulates that hundreds of layoff notices are coming by week’s end amid the huge system’s struggle to close a projected $1.1 billion deficit in the coming fiscal year.

At Coney Island Hospital, an insider said workers are being called into meetings if they’re being spared.

But those on the hit list aren’t being notified that the pink slips are coming, the source said.

NYC Health + Hospitals runs 11 acute-care hospitals as well as other medical facilities and clinics at 70 locations and employs more than 40,000 people.

Earlier this month, H+H President Stanley Brezenoff testified that some 600 managerial employees could get the ax.

Hospital officials didn’t deny the upcoming cuts, saying they are necessary to stabilize the system.

“We are redesigning our management structure to create a more efficient and financially sustainable organization that can direct resources where we need them most — at the front line of patient care,” said hospital spokesman Robert de Luna in a statement.

Officials said no union workers will be affected.

Brooklyn state Sen. Diane Savino held a constituent meeting in Coney Island Hospital’s auditorium on May 20 and said she heard from staffers that layoffs were imminent.

“It’s a shame. You don’t want to see people out of work in this economy,” Savino said.

“It just shows how tenuous the situation is with our safety-net hospitals.”

Savino said the layoffs would affect mid-level managers.

During testimony before the City Council on May 9, Brezenoff said layoffs were unavoidable.

“The stark reality is that we are facing a fiscal cliff. We have a large budget gap — $1.1 billion in FY 2018 [Fiscal Year 2018, begin- ning on July 1], which is increasing to $1.9 billion by FY 2021,” Brezenoff said.

He said “high costs and inefficiencies” in the hospital system — coupled with changes in reimbursement rates from the state and federal governments — have contributed to the fiscal crisis.

One government watchdog said H+H has two major problems: It’s running an outdated system with too many beds and staff and it’s not getting enough revenue because it serves poor patients who are either uninsured or on Medicaid.

“They have too many hospitals, too much bed capacity and too many employees,” said Carol Kellermann, president of the nonpartisan Citizens Budget Commission.

Kellermann endorsed Brezenoff ’s initial restructuring that streamlines management staff as a good first start, but she pointed out, “They’re not touching the unions.”

She said the restructuring at some point will have to touch on workers represented by powerful public employee unions — including SEIU Local 1199.