Tower Health laid off 30 people on Tuesday
It's the second round of jobs cuts this year at the nonprofit health system, which owns St. Christopher's Hospital for Children in a joint venture with Drexel University.
Tower Health laid off 30 people on Tuesday, citing efforts to streamline operations at the nonprofit health system based in Berks County.
Not included in that total were an unspecified number of people in Tower’s information technology department, whose jobs were moved to an outside vendor.
“Although Tower Health’s financial position has improved, we still face challenges and are working hard collectively as an organization to improve performance,” Tower said in a statement.
Tower said it has 11,000 employees.
Tower’s audited financial statement for the year ended June 30 showed a $182 million operating loss, down from $212 million the year before. Its operating loss in the quarter ended Sept. 30 was $19.1 million, down from $37.6 million in the same period last year.
Its unrestricted cash reserves totaled $154 million on Sept. 30, down from $320 million on the same date last year.
The latest job cuts were the second round this year at the organization, which is trying to recover from the financially disastrous acquisition in 2017 of five community hospitals in the Philadelphia market under former chief executive Clint Matthews.
In April, Tower laid of 45 people and eliminated an additional 55 positions that were either vacant or were going to be after people retired or left voluntarily.
A year ago, Tower laid off 52 people from its corporate staff in West Reading, citing its need to retrench after the closures of its Brandywine and Jennersville Hospitals, both in western Chester County, and the then-pending sale of Chestnut Hill Hospital. Those layoffs amounted to 13% of Tower’s corporate management staff of about 400 people.