Layoffs have come to hospital staffs at St. Thomas DeKalb, River Park, Highlands and Stones River. The layoffs, handed down by St. Thomas Health, only affect the regional hospitals acquired recently from Capella Healthcare in 2015.

The Smithville Review contacted St. Thomas Health’s Media Relation’s department and received the following statement:  “Saint Thomas Health is in the process of coming together as a statewide network with the goal of improving the healthcare quality and experience at an affordable cost for the patients and communities we are privileged to serve. Our statewide integration involves re-thinking some services and positions across our system to ensure the long-term strength of our organization as we continue to deliver compassionate, personalized care to those who need it most.”

The decision to integrate positions within the organization has been an ongoing issue for several months. It was just less than five months ago when the corporation announced that the DeKalb, Woodbury and Sparta facilities would immediately become under the management of a single chief executive officer, eliminating the positions of Sue Conley and Bill Little. Within the statement given at that time, Gordon Ferguson, President and CEO Saint Thomas Rutherford Hospital and Regional Hospitals, stated, “There are, though, additional opportunities for consolidating operations and leadership and we need to make changes."
 

Saint Thomas Health is a family of Middle Tennessee hospitals and physician practices united by a single mission: to provide spiritually centered, holistic care that sustains and improves the health of the communities it serves.

Saint Thomas Health is the leading faith-based health-care system in Tennessee and is a part of Ascension, the largest non-profit health system in the U.S. and the world's largest Catholic health system.