Logo for the University of California San Francisco medical center on the wall of a building in the Mission Bay neighborhood. Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images

UCSF Health is slashing approximately 200 positions to mitigate “serious financial challenges,” the hospital network said in a statement to SFGATE on Wednesday.

Kristen Bole, a spokesperson for UCSF, told SFGATE that employees are being notified that their last day will be 60 days from Wednesday. She said those employees won’t be expected to show up to work, but they can work on “items related to their transition.”

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The layoffs were spread across the network and affected positions with “the least impact on patients and daily operations,” Bole said. About a quarter of the employees worked part time, and about half of the full-time employees held management positions.

The staff cuts represent about 1% of UCSF’s workforce, and employees will receive “full UC benefits, including severance and support with career transition,” the UCSF statement read. Bole said the exact severance depends on how long an employee has worked for UCSF Health.

The organization said the staffing reduction was because of rising operation costs and low reimbursements for services.

“While this is a difficult decision, it was necessary to maintain financial stability and continue to deliver the many vital healthcare services we provide in San Francisco and across the Bay Area,” UCSF said.

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A spokesperson for the Employment Development Department told SFGATE that it has not received any WARN filings from UCSF as of Wednesday. Such filings are generally required by the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act in the vent of mass layoffs.

The staff cuts come as health care workers have been striking for more than a week outside UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital in Oakland to protest UCSF’s proposal to transition the hospital’s workers to become University of California employees, Oaklandside reported. Benioff Children’s Hospital is a stand-alone health care system but is affiliated with UCSF after the two integrated in 2014.

Additionally, the cuts come amid looming funding threats to the National Institutes of Health and UC System from the Trump administration.

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