Sunrise Hospital to lay off 100 workers

By Mary Manning

Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2009 | 7:19 p.m.

Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center, with one of two trauma centers in Las Vegas, has announced it will lay off 100 workers, including a dozen registered nurses.

Managers, support staff and ancillary employees are included in the mix, said Dan Davidson, a spokesman for Sunrise Hospital.

An increase in uninsured patients and a lack of reimbursement from the state for indigent care led to the layoffs, Davidson said.

Sunrise provided $110 million in uncompensated care in 2008, Davidson said.

At Sunrise Children's Hospital, 60 percent of its patients are either uninsured or on Medicaid, Davidson said.

Hospital administrators looked at controlling supply costs and other efficiency measures before resorting to layoffs.

"Yet we still see we have a financial burden and made the difficult decision to downsize our workforce," Davidson said. "This was a very difficult decision for us."

Sunrise is part of HCA, a nationwide hospital and healthcare provider.

After hospital administrators meet individually with all of the employees facing layoffs, Sunrise is scheduling an employee placement meeting next week where workers can meet other medical facilities and learn of job opportunities.

Since there are HCA institutions in California and other nearby states, Sunrise will try to match jobs out of state with the unemployed workers, Davidson said.