Sitka Community Hospital employees began receiving offer letters from the Southeast Alaska Health Consortium over the weekend (5/18/19), preempting the hospital sale transition that’s set to take place this summer.
SEARHC senior executive vice president Dan Neumeister said they began sending out the letters Friday and Saturday.
“They’re fairly complete letters that really try and share to the employees things about their job titles,” said Neumeister. “Who their supervisors will be, pay categories, PTO accruals, all those types of things.”
He said SEARHC made offers to all hospital employees currently in good standing, around 160 employees, and a handful said they weren’t interested in receiving an offer of employment.
“Certainly the employees have the right to say ‘I want to take a different job with that organization,'” Neumeister said. “I don’t believe there were all that many, but certainly there have been some employees who’ve said ‘Hey it’s time for me to retire or go on to something else.’”
Both Neumeister and Sitka City Administrator Keith Brady say they’re still working toward transitioning SCH employees to SEARHC by July 1, but that depends on whether SEARHC and the city can determine how much money the city should reserve to cover contract liabilities. Brady says he hopes that will be settled soon.
“There are some liability issues we’re working through, I’m hoping by Friday we’ll be done with that,” he said. “It’s just been a process to make sure that we’re dotting our i’s and crossing our t’s and turning over every stone on this so when it comes time for us to be paying for the liability we’ve done everything we can.”
The Sitka Assembly approved the hospital sale documents in April. Those went back to the SEARHC board for approval. Barring any future complications, the sale is set to be finalized on June 30, with employees from Sitka Community transitioning to SEARHC on July 1. Mountainside Clinic and the longterm care unit will continue to provide services in the short term.
