I was the general lab supervisor in a hospital laboratory for a corporate-owned hospital (fuck corporate hospitals; while I’m at it, fuck corporate laboratories). I was pretty much the glue that held the place together because the director had too much on her plate to be everywhere she needed to be, and I was friendly and personable with everyone – I started my career here as a volunteer, so a decade later I knew the place inside and out.
My boss retired, and was replaced with someone who had good experience and credentials on paper. He came in with lots of promises, and was recommended by some of the C-suites. In hindsight, I shouldn’t have ignored that red flag. So the structure we had was the lab director, then the supervisors – myself, microbiology sup and bloodbank sup, then the lab scientists, technicians and phlebotomist. I had one newly promoted lead scientist to help me, and that position took forever to get, for an extra $2/hr.
So the finance department told us we’re overbudget for the quarter, and needed to make cuts. It doesn’t feel right because staff is overworked and I had to jump in to help regularly. I asked to see how finance calculated the labor budget, and was told it was set by corporate. I sneaked a look at it anyway, and looked like the productivity data is incorrectly calculated – the per unit cost is correct, but they failed to adjust the overhead for indirect quality control costs – calibration, qc, trouble shooting, proficiency testing, training, education etc. I brought this up, and was told good luck getting corporate to change it. In the end, they demoted my lead lab scientist to save $2/hr.
So I quit and moved on. I was doing the job of 3 people and was burnt out; losing the technical help of a lead scientist was the last straw. People were surprised and asked where I was going to so they can come with me. So I did, and brought a few key people with me. So after losing 5 lab scientists, they were scrambling to hire more. Unfortunately for them, this is a unique field with a small pool of qualified talents, and words spread. Last I heard, the microbiology sup retired, and I’m thinking of bringing the bloodbank sup with me. New director is on PTO, so the lab is running on its own with extreme short staffing and zero operational and quality oversight. They have a very realistic possibility of shutting down the hospital doors, or at the very least, turn away ambulances because the lab cannot provide services to the ER with a good turnaround time for accurate results. Turning away ambulances come with CMS fines and investigation.
Saving on $2/hr seems minuscule to me, compared to the dumpster fire they’re sitting in right now.