Trigg County Hospital CEO John Sumner announced during the board of trustees meeting Thursday that 63 employees have been laid off or furloughed.
Sumner says the reduction in staff is due to Governor Andy Beshear’s mandate that elective procedures not be performed during the COVID-19 pandemic. He says the typical cost of being fully staffed is about $47,000 a day, but right now the hospital is currently running at only 30% or so of normal operations.
Sumner warned that the hospital’s financial numbers are going to look really ugly in the coming months.
Governor Beshear’s mandate concerning no elective procedures began in mid-March and he has not yet indicated when procedures might begin again.
Sumner also told the board that the hospital has applied for every possible loan or grant available. He says they recently learned they were awarded a PPP grant, a personnel grant in the amount of $1.5-million. He said the hospital has qualified for other funding.
Sumner says the way the Medicare advance works, they will have to pay that money back in twelve months and if they don’t, the hospital will have to pay 10% interest. He said it’s possible that the federal government may forgive the payback of loans.
