St. Francis Healthcare plans cuts to services

Seven years after unloading its two acute-care hospitals, St. Francis Healthcare System of Hawaii is cutting services again to keep its business afloat.

The once-venerable health care provider is closing its inpatient hospice unit in Ewa and its more than 50-year-old home health program on Oahu and Kauai.

The cost-cutting will mean layoffs for 110 of its 380 employees, or nearly 30 percent of its workforce.

St. Francis didn’t disclose how much money the programs are losing, but said it made "difficult decisions" after examining all service lines as part of a financial plan for the future.

"This is a difficult time for all of us at St. Francis. Having to scale back some of our services and lose great employees is not easy," Jerry Correa, St. Francis’ president and chief executive officer, said in a statement. "We have had to assess which programs and services best support our multi-year strategic plan and the decisions we are making today will help us to be more financially sustainable in the future, so that we can carry on the legacy of the sisters of St. Francis."

The home health care program will operate through June 30, while the 24-bed inpatient hospice unit that opened in 1997 will continue through Sept. 30. Hospice patients will be accepted at the Ewa facility, which is on the former St. Francis Medical Center campus, through Aug. 1.

St. Francis said it will continue to provide care to affected hospice patients either in the home or in nursing facilities.

The affected employees include 22 nurses and nonclinical administrative support staff.

"It’s National Nurses Week and nurses are losing their jobs. It’s a rough way to start Nurses Week," said Joan Craft, president of the Hawaii Nurses Association. "Everybody is going to help those guys land as best as they can … but it’s a hard change, their environments are very different. People tend to gravitate to jobs that fit them well. Hospice and home care are kind of specialized, so they’re going to go through a transition for sure."

St. Francis will still operate a 12-bed inpatient hospice in Nuu­anu, as well as its home hospice program. The cuts include a small health education program with three employees. There are no plans to eliminate any other services.

The organization began reducing services when it exited the acute-care business in January 2007, selling the financially troubled St. Francis Medical Centers in Ewa and Liliha for $68 million to HMC LLC, then a for-profit joint venture between Hawaii Physician Group LLC and Kansas-based Cardiovascular Hospitals of America.

St. Francis, which provided the bulk of the financing for the sale and was HMC’s largest creditor, regained control of the hospitals following a lengthy bankruptcy that led to the closure of the facilities in 2011 and 2012. The Queen’s Health Systems acquired the Ewa hospital from St. Francis in December 2012 and plans to reopen the facility May 20.

Meanwhile the organization is preparing to open a $20 million, 119-bed skilled-nursing facility at its Liliha campus in late summer.

Over time, St. Francis said, it hopes to add more services on the Liliha campus, including a senior community center, assisted living, adult day care and independent living.

"That campus will eventually be transformed into Hawaii’s first comprehensive health and wellness center to meet the needs of Hawaii’s older adult population," Correa said. "Saint Marianne Cope and the Sisters of St. Francis showed us that being a mission-oriented organization means we must be prudent stewards of the resources that have been entrusted to us. It demands us to be flexible yet decisive, ready to move in new directions and unafraid to let go of what we may cherish."