LAKE COUNTY — Sutter Lakeside Hospital is closing two clinics in the county as part of a cost-cutting strategy.
“We are striving to ensure our long-term financial stability and needed to reduce our operating losses,” chief administrative officer Siri Nelson stated in an email Monday.
Services at the Upper Lake Community Health Clinic, currently housed in the town”s high school, will be shifted to the Lakeport hospital”s Family Medical Center beginning May 31, according to Nelson.
The center could see added providers and expanded hours to accommodate more patients, according to Nelson. Hospital administration is looking into making its Mobile Health Services Unit available in Upper Lake once a week in the future, she added.
The Interventional Pain Center, or pain clinic, will also close, with a targeted shutdown date of June 30, according to Nelson.
The pain clinic has lost more than $1 million per year, she added.
All impacted employees have already been informed, according to Nelson. “Some can take other jobs in the hospital, but others may not be able to,” she stated.
Nelson also told hospital employees in late March that administration planned to eliminate about 10 percent of the hospital”s workforce, according to a memo she provided to the Record-Bee.
A majority of those workers have been notified, according to Nelson.
Sutter Lakeside Hospital was on track to lose more than $10 million this year, Nelson stated in the March memo.
