Cape Cod Healthcare Furloughs Hundreds Of Workers

Cape Cod Healthcare announced that it is furloughing about 600 workers, or 10% of its labor force, because of “historic” financial losses caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

The hospital group is the parent company of Cape Cod and Falmouth hospitals, faces a $74 million loss this fiscal year, President and CEO Michael Lauf said Thursday.

“Today was a bad day for Cape Cod Healthcare,” Lauf said at a news conference. “I never thought in my 12 years here I would have to do what I did today.”

Only bedside nurses and those on the front lines fighting the pandemic were spared, Lauf said.

Physicians, nurses, technicians, aides, parking lot attendants and other positions were affected, he said.

In addition to the furloughs that take effect Sunday, management and executives are taking salary cuts of up to 12.5%, Lauf said.

In a statement, Shannon Sherman, chair of the Massachusetts Nurses Association bargaining unit at Cape Cod Hospital, called it a “callous and short-sighted decision, which we believe will place all of our patients in jeopardy and have dangerous consequences for the remaining staff, who are already exhausted from working under what has been the most trying time for health care workers.”