Nearly 30 SOMC employees will be looking for new positions after the hospital announced plans to cut over 100 positions and restructure many remaining jobs.
While many of the cut positions are currently vacant, the hospital said the few dozen employees who will be ousted from their current positions are encouraged to apply for one of the 200 open vacancies at the hospital, though they did not say if similar positions are available.
The hospital said many employees will find themselves doing the same job in a different department and that some departments will actually be adding employees.
The hospital also plans to eliminate some services, but they have not announced which services those might be.
Small hospitals have struggled in recent years. Two years ago Our Lady of Bellefonte Hospital in Ashland shut down, with the parent company citing the difficulties of keeping small hospitals running.
At the time of OLBH’s closing, SOMC and KDMC both held hiring fairs to offer new opportunities to employees who lost their jobs.
The COVID-19 pandemic made it even tougher on hospitals. While there was a greater need for critical care in some areas, the lockdown prevented hospitals from providing the type of procedures that help keep them in the black.
The former OLBH will be converted to a rehab facility with a 40-bed psychiatric and 24-bed chemical dependency unit.
