Northern Light Health outsources roughly 500 jobs

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All housekeeping and cafeteria positions at Northern Light Health are being outsourced to a third-party company, employees learned Tuesday.

Around 500 jobs were sold to Compass One Healthcare, a nationwide health care company that manages two other companies, Morrison food and nutrition services and Crothall support services, Northern Light Health spokesperson Suzanne Spruce said.

This is the fourth major change the Brewer-based hospital system announced this week. The changes come a week after a credit rating agency downgraded its scores for Northern Light Health, citing ongoing financial losses.

Three high-ranking executives lost their jobs as the health care system makes “difficult but necessary decisions” to reduce operating expenses, Spruce said.

It’s unclear what the changes mean for Northern Light. The health care system employs roughly 10,000 people across the state, 4,000 of which work at Eastern Maine Medical Center, making it Bangor’s biggest employer.

The outsourcing was announced to employees Tuesday and is effective Jan. 1. No layoffs will happen and all employees can change their employment to Compass, Spruce said.

Northern Light has been making changes to its operations for several months.

Since June, Northern Light Health has cut the hours at its Walk-In Care clinic on Union Street in Bangor, closed its Hearing Care service in Bangor, closed its Dexter Internal Medicine facility and started charging for its ambulance service to seven Penobscot County towns.

Northern Light previously closed its clinic in Southwest Harbor and shuttered an Orono primary care practice.

The health care provider had a more than $60 million deficit at the end of the second quarter, according to hospital documents.

Compass works with 2,200 hospital and health systems across 45 states, according to its website.