SAN DIEGO (KGTV) – UC San Diego Health on Monday announced it is laying off 230 of its employees.
Employees impacted by the layoffs include frontline workers such as pharmacists, clinical social workers, and blood bank lab scientists.
UC San Diego Health officials said the elimination of jobs was due to “mounting financial pressures” and “rising costs.”
The hospital's full statement:
“On Monday, June 23, UC San Diego Health made the difficult decision to eliminate approximately 230 team member positions from across its clinics and hospitals.
The decision was made solely in response to mounting financial pressures caused by federal impacts to health care, regulatory uncertainty, and rising costs of providing care combined with reimbursement rates from Medicare, Medicaid, and insurers that fail to keep pace with the true cost of care.
UC San Diego Health is not alone. Reductions in personnel are being experienced by health systems across the nation. The reduction at UC San Diego Health represents approximately 1.5% of the total workforce.
Affected employees will receive all university benefits due to them through HR policies including transitional career support services.
We are grateful for the tremendous contributions of our affected employees, as well as the continued support of our extraordinary teams.
UC San Diego Health is proud of its long history of providing steady employment to tens of thousands of San Diegans. We continue to support an agile and resilient workforce of more than 14,000 team members who provide access to safe, reliable and high-quality patient care across the region.”
Union responds to layoffs
In response to the UC San Diego Health's announcement, University Professional and Technical Employees (UPTE) — the union representing some of the workers affected by the decision — issued this statement:
“Today, UC San Diego Health issued layoff notices to approximately 230 workers, including workers represented by the University Professional and Technical Employees (UPTE). Many of these workers held critical, frontline roles that directly provided and supported patient care; positions that are already facing national shortages at a time when UC is grappling with a systemwide staffing crisis.
Among the impacted providers are Pharmacists, Clinical Social Workers, and Clinical Laboratory Scientists working in the blood bank—positions that are essential to saving lives and ensuring safe, quality and accessible healthcare. 70% of medical decisions are based on Clinical Laboratory results.1 UCSD Clinical Laboratory Scientists report staffing levels already so low that they are concerned laboratory errors could lead to serious patient impact.
UC San Diego Health has the resources and the obligation to retain crucial frontline staff who are integral to patient care. So far, UPTE has heard of at least five examples where staff were sent home mid-shift without being able to finish their tasks or hand off their patients. This includes an inpatient pharmacist who was dismissed without having a replacement available to complete their shift, as well as a social worker who was sent home before completing vital patient notes.
‘UCSD’s announced layoffs do nothing to alleviate the existing staffing crisis impacting patient care. Not only are these layoffs wholly unnecessary and sure to negatively impact the health and well-being of UCSD’s patients and community, but they’re seemingly being done with no consideration for continuity or quality of care,’ said Sam Warsh, a Dietitian 4 at UC San Diego Health and member of UPTE’s bargaining team. ‘I was alarmed to hear that one of our social workers who conducts psychosocial assessments and provides emotional, psychological, and practical support to patients undergoing one of the most complex and life-altering treatments in cancer care was told to leave campus immediately without finishing their patient notes or properly handing their caseload off to another provider. We’re forced to wonder if UCSD has even considered the likely impact on our patients.’
UC San Diego Health leadership has cited ‘severe financial constraints’ as the reason for these cuts, but the facts tell a different story. No significant federal cuts to UC funding have been made, the most recent state budget proposal actually calls for a 5% increase to UC’s base funding, and UC San Diego continues its hospital expansion, increasing patient demand while cutting frontline workers. Additionally, UC San Diego Health recently provided a $20 million loan to Palomar Health [voiceofsandiego.org], which they are widely believed to now seek to acquire, while simultaneously laying off crucial members of the healthcare team at UCSD.
This trend of prioritizing investment opportunities over patients has been consistent across UC worksites. UPTE recently released a report titled Misplaced Priorities: How a Staffing Crisis at the University of California Undermines Public Health, Research, and Education [upte.org] which highlights how leadership decisions have prioritized capital projects over California’s students and patients. At UCSD Hillcrest in 2023, 5.6% of ER patients left without being seen—an increase from 4.1% in 2019—and more than twice as high as the state average of 2.6%.2 UCSD nurses also report patient wait times of up to 7 hours in the ER, and a 3- to 5-day wait sitting in conference rooms or hallways before being admitted.3
This has led to the current staffing crisis, which is being exacerbated by layoffs like those happening at UCSD Health.
UPTE calls on UC San Diego Health to immediately reinstate all laid-off workers and course correct as a public institution. UC must act now to end harmful layoffs and ensure safe staffing to support frontline workers delivering the healthcare, research, and education that San Diegans and Californians rely on.”
