Consultants inside PeaceHealth invoke fear of more cuts

For weeks, PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center employees have seen unfamiliar faces wandering the halls of Whatcom County’s lone hospital.

The presence of the consultants, who are employees of Huron Consulting Group, a global management consulting company with a health care arm, is spreading fear across departments that a new round of layoffs is imminent.

On Tuesday, Feb. 3, employees of the hospital’s lab, which is under evaluation for staffing cuts, confronted multiple members of the consulting team. The lab assistants, who are represented by Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Healthcare 1199NW, delivered a petition signed by more than 400 hospital employees to the consultants that explained the importance of their work to the hospital.

“We want to be clear: a shortage of lab assistants means that our patients will suffer,” the petition reads.

In what was described as an awkward and uncomfortable encounter, none of the consultants present in the lab who received the petition verbally responded to the lab assistants standing before them, said Billy Reeves, who was among the lab assistants who delivered the petition.

“We’re not at the bedside, but we’re still taking care of the patients,” said Reeves, who’s been a lab assistant at St. Joseph for nearly four years.

The hospital said it’s working with Huron to “strengthen operational and financial stability,” and that the consulting group is conducting a “comprehensive review of operational workflows” to reduce variability. PeaceHealth declined to say whether it plans to cut any positions or how much its contract with Huron costs.

The petition, which was signed by dozens of nurses, emergency department employees, technologists and physicians, said that any cuts to phlebotomy or the hospital’s specimen management team will result in delays. If the lab’s staff is cut, the assistants say patients will have to wait longer to have their blood drawn and for results to be returned.

“With a rapidly growing community, and just one hospital to serve them all, cutting vital jobs would be a detriment to Whatcom County,” SEIU 1199NW lab assistants said in a statement.

The hospital’s lab handles tests for everything from blood, urine and other bodily fluids to specimens.

“We already have the number of people that we need to do the job safely. So any cuts would be like a net negative — just bad for the rest of the hospital and for patient care,” Reeves told Cascadia Daily News.

The consulting group is known for, among other things, recommending layoffs. In early January, employees of the lab were told that the hospital would no longer backfill positions.

In a statement to CDN, PeaceHealth said it’s “engaged Huron to support an organization‑wide review focused on strengthening operations and long‑term sustainability.”

“The work spans both clinical and nonclinical areas and is intended to surface data‑driven opportunities that enhance patient care, support our caregivers and improve efficiency,” the hospital spokesperson added.

Following PeaceHealth’s multiple rounds of layoffs in 2025 and the listing and selling of multiple substantial properties, caregivers are worried that lower-paid employees will soon be targets of cuts. Lab assistants at St. Joseph on the low end of the pay scale earn $23.57 an hour, while those with more than two decades of experience can earn up to $35.37 an hour, according to an SEIU 1199NW spokesperson.

Members of SEIU spent 10 months negotiating a contract with PeaceHealth that was finished in September last year. The union represents about 1,000 employees at St. Joseph, an SEIU spokesperson said.

Huron declined to comment or acknowledge whether it works with PeaceHealth, to whom it referred all inquiries. PeaceHealth’s work with Huron isn’t an anomaly. Huron has a contract with the Skagit County Public Hospital District No. 1, which includes Skagit Regional Health’s Mount Vernon hospital.

The presence of the consulting group comes as hospital employees have been encouraged in recent weeks to cut their hours and go home early as a cost-saving measure, according to multiple employees who spoke with CDN. Cutting hospital employees’ hours, or low census, has been encouraged on a voluntary basis in the lab for productivity measures, Reeves said. Low census can become mandatory, too.

Due to mandatory low census elsewhere in the hospital, employees throughout St. Joseph are anticipating layoffs, SEIU 1199NW said in a statement.

“We routinely increase or decrease staffing levels based on patient volumes,” a PeaceHealth spokesperson said. “These modifications consider patient safety, acuity and real‑time needs.”

Owen Racer is a Report for America corps member who covers health care and public health in Whatcom and Skagit counties. Reach him at owenracer@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 ext. 101. Learn more and donate at cascadiadaily.com/rfa.