IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) - An Iowa City hospital will lay off 29 employees because of losses suffered during the coronavirus outbreak, it recently told state officials.
Mercy Iowa City filed notice of the layoffs with Iowa Workforce Development, noting that the layoffs will be effective Nov. 21, the Gazette reported.
The layoffs will affect a variety of non-specific areas in the hospital, according to Mercy Iowa City spokesman Aaron Scheinblum.
The notice was filed days before the hospital announced last month that it would close its inpatient mental and behavioral health unit. Scheinblum said the layoffs are not specifically tied to Mercy’s Behavioral Health Unit.
The unit will accept its last patient on Nov. 1. It staffed between 10 and 12 beds over the past year, according to an inpatient psychiatric bed tracking system by the Iowa Department of Human Services.
“Due to the financial impact of COVID-19, we are in the process of transitioning our unlocked Inpatient Behavioral Health unit in favor of expanding our outpatient service where there is greater community need,” the hospital said in an earlier statement to The Gazette.
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