Here are the efforts Grand Strand Health is making to ensure employees’ financial security
Grand Strand Health announced efforts to ensure the financial stability of its workers amid the coronavirus outbreak Friday.
The health care facility stated that some employees have had their hours reduced with a decrease in surgery and outpatient volume as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, GSH is enacting a “pandemic pay continuation” in which it will redeploy such employees so they can keep working.
Those who can’t be redeployed will receive 70 percent of their base pay for up to seven weeks as HCA Healthcare, which Grand Strand Health is a part of, assesses the long-term implications the pandemic will have on its organizations.
“This pandemic is unique, and our colleagues’ concerns are real,” Chief Executive Officer Mark Sims said in a prepared statement. “We want them to know that we care like family, and stand with them. If we are to emerge stronger, more resilient and more capable to meet our nation’s healthcare challenges, we recognize that this cannot happen without supporting all of our colleagues in these trying times.”
GSH stated that all employees working in patient care facilities that are quarantined per Central for Disease Control (CDC) guidelines will receive full pay for scheduled hours regardless of where the exposure took place. Employees who were not working in those facilities but are quarantined per CDC guidelines will be able to get short-term disability while they’re sick.
Grand Strand Health will provide scrub laundering for employees dealing with COVID-19 patients in an effort to avoid having the virus following them home. HCA Healthcare is also working with hotels to get free places to stay for employees who prefer to not go home to their loved ones after their shifts.
HCA Healthcare also announced that its senior leadership team members will take a 30 percent paycut until the pandemic passes. HCA Healthcare CEO Sam Hazen is donating 100 percent of his paychecks to the HCA Hope Fund, which grants employees financial help and counseling, for eight weeks. Also, HCA Healthcare’s Board of Directors have waived their cash compensation for the rest of the year in order to donate those funds to the HCA Hope Fund.
