The city’s municipal hospitals will lay off as many as 600 employees in coming months to help close a deficit estimated at $1.1 billion next year, their leader said Tuesday.
“I would move on them very quickly,” interim NYC Health + Hospitals president Stanley Brezenoff said after testifying before the City Council. “My aim is now to get the savings immediately in the next fiscal year.”
The sprawling hospital network laid off 73 workers earlier this year.
Last month, The Post reported that Brezenoff foreshadowed the new round of layoffs in an April 19 memo that warned brass of “restructuring to create more efficient, streamlined and financially sustainable management teams.”
In statements made to the council and then reporters, Brezenoff initially declined to provide any figures for the coming cutbacks.
Moments later, he offered broad ranges — before insisting that the layoffs be called “terminations.”
“I don’t know the number,” he said in his first response to Councilman Corey Johnson (D-Manhattan). “I’m resisting, I guess, giving you a specific number, but it’s going to be substantially larger than the 73.”
He then offered a range of between 200 and 1,000.
“That’s a pretty big range,” responded Johnson.
Brezenoff smiled and changed his estimate again, this time settling on between 200 and 600.
“They’re terminations,” he said, in rejecting use of the word layoff. “I’m not trying to duck out on the fact that I’m terminating people.”
Brezenoff said union jobs would not be included in the coming cuts, and refused to say if there would be more cuts in the future.
“I can’t promise anything,” he said.
The municipal network includes 11 acute-care hospitals and more than 70 clinics, and employs more than 39,000 people.