After 41 years at St. Joseph’s Medical Center, Brenda Savio had just 90 days to figure out where she would go next.
She had logged three, 12-hour shifts a week for more than four decades as a clerical secretary. When the layoff call came in June, Savio said it was like she was “hung out to dry.”
Savio ultimately managed to keep her job, her seniority giving her first pick of the hospital’s open positions. But that meant bumping one of her fellow secretaries from a unit where she feels like a “fish out of water.”
“It’s devastating,” said Savio, 61. “To have my livelihood threatened like this is horrible … it’s humiliating.”
For weeks, staff at one of Stockton’s top hospitals told CommonSpirit Health, the nonprofit health system that operates St. Joseph’s Medical Center, that the cuts would lead to increased workloads, a strain they said would put patient safety at risk.
At St. Joseph’s, three registered nurses and eight unit secretaries were notified over the summer that their positions would be eliminated, said Michael Barney, the hospital’s labor representative with the California Nurses Association, which represents about 1,300 RNs at the Stockton medical center.
Now, it’s up to nurses to take on the work left behind by the eliminated clerical roles.
“I can’t imagine doing this job without the secretaries,” said Patrick Moran, a charge nurse in the cardiac ICU, as the occasional car horn blared at Wednesday’s CNA rally outside the hospital. “I’m not going to be able to fill that gap.”
In a statement to Stocktonia, hospital spokesperson Kellie Ryan Johnson said “unprecedented economic pressures, soaring costs and complex government and payer dynamics” led the hospital to eliminate some roles. Calling the approach “proactive,” Johnson said the changes will “set the groundwork for sustained growth.”
“To support long-term sustainability and uphold our commitment to serving our communities, we are taking a number of steps to improve efficiency and reduce costs,” Johnson said. “This includes making the difficult decision to reduce some roles in our organization.”
In Savio’s previous unit, the raise of an eyebrow was enough for her to anticipate staff needs. From tracking time-sensitive lab work to answering an ever-ringing phone, clerical staff kept the unit moving, she said.
Cutting the hospital’s clerical staff will cause “delay after delay” in patient care, said Stacy Erck, a charge nurse in the respiratory and metabolic ICU.
“They don’t just sit tight or sit behind a desk,” said Erck, who’s been with the hospital for 10 years. “They are actually a part of the care team.”
The layoffs — also happening at 17 other CommonSpirit Health hospitals in California, according to the union’s news release — have staff asking: “Who’s next?”
Janett Laroza, who has worked as a hospital secretary for at least 30 years, also received a layoff notice. She recently landed a new position as a scheduler in the hospital’s radiology department — a job that will require four to six weeks of training.
Yet her start date isn’t until Sept. 14 — two weeks after she stops working as a clerical secretary at the hospital. The pay gap will force her to delay some bill payments this month, she said.
“It’s just frustrating,” Laroza said. “In the two-week period, what am I gonna do? I’m gonna not get paid.”
During her last weeks at the hospital, Savio said she couldn’t help but feel stressed after multiple meetings and negotiations passed without a clear long-term plan.
And while she hopes to one day return to her old unit, she’s not counting on it.
“(It’s) like they don’t see us,” she said. “They’re just willfully blind to what the secretaries do.”