From the newsroom

Before PeaceHealth's incoming chief executive officer could officially take over the role in January, she was the bearer of bad news in employees' inboxes on Tuesday afternoon.

In what is the latest installment of layoffs at the Catholic health system, Sarah Ness announced a 2.5% reduction across the system operating in Washington, Oregon and Alaska. 

A PeaceHealth spokesperson didn't share any insight into the local impact when asked by CDN, but data the health system provided to the state indicates more than 50 cuts in Bellingham, ranging from clinical and director roles to managers and supervisors.

In total, PeaceHealth is permanently eliminating 241 positions in Washington, beginning at the end of December and concluding in January. The system's medical group, which was still reeling from the September round of cuts that saw 18 leadership positions axed, failed to emerge unscathed from this round, as a director and a manager were cut.

PeaceHealth isn't alone in cutting staff amid an unpredictable health care landscape awaiting changes and cuts from the federal level. Citing cuts in state and federal funding, Seattle Children's said they were laying off 154 employees, the Seattle Times reported in September.

What is unique in this instance is that while other hospitals have pointed directly to looming federal changes to health care as the source of their cuts, PeaceHealth has consistently refrained from citing federal upheaval as the source of its repeated layoffs.

Ness's email to employees did mention an "unpredictable healthcare landscape," but just weeks prior, PeaceHealth Northwest Chief Executive Charles Prosper said the local impact of federal cuts and changes to health care remains unknown.

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