Employees across the massive US Health and Human Services Department began receiving notices of dismissal on Tuesday in an overhaul ultimately expected to lay off up to 10,000 people. The notices come just days after President Donald Trump moved to strip workers of their collective bargaining rights at HHS and other agencies throughout the government.
At the National Institutes of Health, the world’s leading health and medical agency, the layoffs occurred as its new director, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, began his first day of work. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Announced a plan last week to remake the department, which, through its agencies, is responsible for tracking health trends and disease outbreaks, conducting and funding medical research, and monitoring the safety of food and medicine, as well as for administering health insurance programs for nearly half of the country.
The plan would consolidate agencies that oversee billions of dollars for addiction services and community health centres under a new office called the Administration for a Healthy America.
The layoffs are expected to shrink HHS to 62,000 positions, lopping off nearly a quarter of its staff - 10,000 jobs through layoffs and another 10,000 workers who took early retirement and voluntary separation offers.
At the NIH, the cuts included at least four directors of the NIH ‘s 27 institutes and centres who were put on administrative leave, and nearly entire communications staffs were terminated, according to an agency senior leader, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid retribution.
An email viewed by The Associated Press shows some senior-level employees of the Bethesda, Maryland, campus who were placed on leave were offered a possible transfer to the Indian Health Service in locations including Alaska and given until end of Wednesday to respond.
Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington predicted the cuts will have ramifications when natural disasters strike or infectious diseases, like the ongoing measles outbreak, spread.
“They may as well be renaming it the Department of Disease because their plan is putting lives in serious jeopardy, “ Murray said on Friday
