Opinion ID: 758035
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Layoffs

Text: 26 In the fall of 1994, HHC notified the NYU Medical Center Administrator for Affiliation Contracts that the mental health portion of the affiliation contract budget at Bellevue had to be reduced by approximately $2 million annually. NYU Medical Center administrators, including Dr. Trujillo, strenuously argued against the reduction; but in the end, HHC insisted on the budget cut and determined that it could be achieved only by laying off psychiatrists. 27 In late 1994 and early 1995, NYU Medical Center administrators developed a reorganization program to achieve the inevitable reduction in staff via a treatment plan to rapidly stabilize and release patients. Under this plan, staff cuts were mainly in the inpatient units; one of them was to be closed and others were to be combined, reorganized or redirected. 28 The number of psychiatrists slated for lay-off was ten. Drs. Castaneda and Trujillo, Deputy Director of the Department of Psychiatry Wallack, and Senior Clinical Coordinator Levy, along with other administrators, participated in several meetings to determine who would go; the final list included Drs. Graham, Kermani, Geller, Portnow, Mahon and Steiner. On March 22, 1995, each of them was summoned to a meeting with Seltzer, Trujillo, and Wallack, and given a letter terminating his or her employment, for budgetary reasons.