LRGHealthcare lays off three people in marketing department

LACONIA — LRGHealthcare has laid off three public relations employees, including the director of marketing, as it works to reduce costs, President and Chief Executive Officer Kevin W. Donovan said Wednesday.

Marketing Director Sandra Marshall declined comment.

Donovan said the organization is “committed to making prudent, but sometimes difficult, decisions to maintain high-quality care for the residents of the Lakes Region.

“As part of our efforts to manage costs for the long-term benefit of our organization, and ultimately the community, I can confirm we have had a select few layoffs in our marketing department.

“We value every employee here at LRGHealthcare, so we do not take decisions like this lightly. After a thoughtful review of our marketing needs, we felt that this was an area where we could consolidate duties, take advantage of some newer technologies and not affect patient care.”

At the LRGHealthcare annual meeting on April 10, Donovan disclosed that the not-for-profit organization is losing $1 million per month on operations and would like to partner with a company that could provide significant capital investment.

“As I presented at our annual meeting, we do have challenges which we are addressing, but we also have many great stories to share about the enhancements to our emergency department, our quality initiatives and the growth of our medical staff, including many new community-based primary-care clinicians,” Donovan said.

Last year, LRGHealthcare closed its birthing center, consolidated medical practices and laid off 16 administrative employees — all in an effort to stem operating losses and eventually break even.

LRGHealthcare has about 1,000 employees and is the biggest employer in the region.

At the annual meeting, Donovan said LRGHealthcare’s financial performance is hindered by the costs of servicing an unusually large debt load, the expense of starting a new electronic medical record system and patient payment challenges.