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#3- Southwest Regional Medical Center has tough year

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On Jan. 31, Southwest Regional Medical Center closed its Hematology and Oncology Center, prompting Cindy Cowie, SRMC’s chief executive officer, to remark, “We are at a pivotal crossroads with even more changes coming our way.”
Nine months later, those changes became a reality. Facing unprecedented challenges with reductions in payment from insurers and increases in bad debt, the hospital announced it was laying off 29 employees.
The employees were from different areas of the hospital, from nurses to cafeteria workers, but as part of the Service Employees International Union contract, the employees were given the opportunity to take a voluntary reduction through retirement or resignation and 14 chose this venue, reducing the impact of nonvoluntary layoffs to 15.
In addition to the layoffs, the hospital also announced it would only be performing scheduled surgical procedures and that other regional providers would accept patients that need this level of care where onsite physician monitoring is provided around the clock.
Also, the current intensive care unit will transition to an Intermediate Care Unit, to allow for specialized treatment and monitoring of hospital patients.
Then, a month after these changes were announced, the hospital was served with a lawsuit from a former employee, alleging the hospital failed to provide adequate care, refused to report purported inadequacies and was terminated because she raised these matters.
Several weesk after the federal lawsuit was filed the Pennsylvania Department of health conducted an inspection and analysis of care provided, and according to the hospital, the DOH investigation revealed the allegations to have been misplaced and unwarranted. Nonetheless the hospital must still defend the suit in court.