More layoffs at Nassau University hospital

Nassau University Medical Center on Friday laid off 25 nurses or nurses aides and offered another 12 nurses part-time positions as part of an ongoing effort to close a projected $50-million budget gap.

The layoffs came three months after the East Meadow hospital laid off 175 employees to plug a shortfall in its $533-million budget.

The hospital and its associated facilities said the gap was caused by rising pension costs, lower Medicaid payments and higher operating costs.

"This is the final phase of the November downsizing," hospital spokeswoman Shelley Lotenberg said. No additional layoffs are planned, she said.

Lotenberg said the 25 nurses or nurses aides being let go had worked in the hospital's outpatient clinics.

The clinics have been consolidated "to be consistent with patient volumes and for increased clinical productivity. No clinic specialties have been eliminated," she said.

The 12 employees offered part-time positions -- including registered nurses and licensed practical nurses -- were also from the hospital clinics.

In addition, 40 employees from around the hospital -- including nurses, clinicians, clerical workers, techs and executives -- had accepted early retirement packages last month. Each received up to a maximum of $20,000, based on salary and seniority, Lotenberg said.

That reduces the number of employees to 3,550 now at NuHealth/Nassau Health Care Corporation. The public benefit corporation includes NUMC, A. Holly Patterson Extended Care Facility and five community health care centers.

"I think we're witnessing the dismantling of our public hospital," said Jerry Laricchiuta, president of the Civil Services Employees Association, which has been locked in a contract dispute with the corporation since 2009 when the contract expired.

"It's like watching a slow-motion movie. He's just going to keep cutting," Laricchiuta said, referring to Arthur Gianelli, chief executive of NuHealth.

After the layoffs in November, Gianelli had said the corporation still had a $5.5-million budget deficit. Those funds would have to come from union concessions or further layoffs, he said at the time.

But Laricchiuta said the union couldn't make concessions without a contract. "I can't open up a contract with him if we don't have a contract," he said Friday.

In a statement Friday, Gianelli replied that under the state's Triborough Amendment to the Taylor Law, which prohibits a public employer from altering provisions of an expired labor contract until a new agreement is reached, "the terms of the contract are in full force and effect and the CSEA could have made any number of concessions to offset, at least in part, layoffs due to the staggering increase in pension costs. The CSEA elected to make no concessions."