St. Charles Health System Lays off, Scraps 2 Upper-Level Positions Amid Financial, Staffing, ‘Max Capacity’ Challenges

(KTVZ) – Three days after Joe Sluka resigned as St. Charles Health System president and CEO, the organization announced it has laid off and eliminated two upper-level positions to cut costs and reactivated its incident command system to deal with the continued financial, patient capacity and staffing impacts of COVID-19. "As part of St. Charles Health System’s continued financial recovery work, two executive leadership positions have been eliminated," Friday's statement said. Mendenhall also shared with NewsChannel 21 a clarification statement St. Charles provided to OPB after its story about St. Charles' issues on Friday claimed St. Charles patients "face rationed care" as a result of the surge of COVID-19 cases tied to the latest subvariant: Earlier today, we activated our Hospital Incident Command System to manage our significant patient flow and workforce challenges. "We reactivated our Hospital Incident Command System on Friday afternoon to manage the significant bed capacity and workforce shortages we are currently facing, like so many health systems throughout the state."