NEW YORK - Hospital officials are getting rid of hundreds of jobs as part an effort to close a nearly $2 billion projected budget gap.
Nearly 500 management positions have been eliminated by the Health and Hospitals Corporation.
The move is expected to save the department about $60 million.
Officials say those being let go are not union employees or directly involved in taking care of patients.
"I don't think at this point, patients or communities that rely on the public health have to be worried about this. It wasn't front-line clinical staff that really are doing the patient care," said Anthony Feliciano, director of the Commission on the Public's Health System. "I think there are other things that we really do need to worry, given the way the public hospital, the situation from the federal level, from what's going on in terms of the $1.6 billion deficit that can happen in 2019."
The hospital system has been plagued by rising costs and reduced federal funding due a change in reimbursement policy under the Affordable Care Act.