Mad River Community Hospital is located at 3800 Janes Road in Arcata. | Photos by Dezmond Remington.

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Late last week, the Outpost began hearing rumblings about serious turmoil at Mad River Community Hospital, and over the past five days we’ve communicated with a dozen people who either still work there or were recently let go. Collectively, they agree that there is cause for alarm.

In a series of phone conversations, emails and texts, these sources reported not only a wave of recent layoffs but also a number of serious concerns related to patient safety, employee working conditions and potential violations of state law.

“It’s a shit show,” said one of the numerous hospital workers who spoke to the Outpost. “Employees have been talking for weeks about a walkout. Ninety percent of nursing staff is miserable because of these changes and management. The hospital used to have a family feel. It was a community, and now everybody hates their job.”

The administration isn’t saying how many people have lost their jobs over the past few months, but current and former employees we interviewed say it’s at least 15. Those who’ve been terminated or not had their contracts renewed include valued doctors, the risk manager, the medical staff coordinator and most of the billing department. Others, including five experienced care providers in the Emergency Department, have quit.

Meanwhile, these sources say, nursing staff hours have been drastically reduced, with many RNs regularly being relegated to on-call status at a rate of $8 per hour, which, if true, is a violation of state labor laws. Under a recently introduced staffing matrix, the number of nurses in the Medical Surgical (Med/Surg) unit has been slashed to levels that compromise patient safety, several sources told the Outpost. 

“Under the current model, there are often not enough nurses on individual units to safely cover required breaks and meals,” one source said in an email. “As a result, I am frequently pulled away from supervisory responsibilities to provide break coverage across ICU, Med/Surg, and the Emergency Department.”

Mad River’s billing services have been outsourced to a Tennessee-based company called Ovation Healthcare, and the remaining employees in that department are being told that they’ll no longer work for the hospital.

”[Mad River administrators] are telling us that we’re going to work for [Ovation] now,” said one of the remaining employees in that department. “It’s upsetting. If we don’t accept the [job] offer, it’s not considered a layoff; it’s considered a voluntarily resignation, so we’re not eligible for unemployment benefits. It’s kind of like pointing a gun to our head and forcing us to go with this new company.”

The current and former employees we’ve communicated with over the past few days requested anonymity due to fear of professional repercussions. 

The Outpost reached out to hospital administrators on Monday, emailing a list of claims and concerns to Chief Operating Officer Matthew Anderson and asking exactly how many people have been laid off since the beginning of the year. In response, Anderson said that the hospital wants to respond but hoped we could wait to publish a story until after meeting in-person with members of the executive team next week.

We explained that we couldn’t wait that long to publish given the pressing nature of the concerns, which are already being widely discussed online. Anderson asked that we wait at least until this morning for a prepared response. Here it is:

Mad River Community Hospital recognizes the very real human impact of recent reductions to our workforce. We wish these difficult decisions were not necessary. However, the financial and operational pressures facing rural hospitals across California is an ongoing challenge.  

Our responsibility is to preserve access to safe and reliable care and ensure the hospital can continue serving the community for the long term. Preserving Mad River is essential to maintaining meaningful local choice and healthcare capacity for the patients and families in this region.

We are adapting to challenges by making necessary decisions with a full commitment to the safety of our patients and staff and fulfilling all the legal obligations of our industry. Suggestions otherwise are false. We remain committed to transparency and dialogue with our community. Thank you for your continued faith in us.

The hospital didn’t respond to any of the specific allegations employees made about current patient safety and compliance with state law.

This upheaval comes at a particularly difficult time for independent, rural hospitals nationwide. Over the past two decades, nearly 200 rural hospitals have completely or partially closed, and another 400, representing more than 20 percent of rural hospitals nationwide, are at risk of closure.

Mad River is one of them, and three years ago the board of directors announced its intent to sell the hospital to an Arizona-based hospital management company. However, the deal fell through less than nine months later, and former Chief Executive David Neal was unexpectedly ousted around the same time. Longtime CEO Douglas Shaw, meanwhile, is in his mid-70s. Employees say he’s ready to retire.

Mad River’s current chief executive, Suzanne Richards, took the helm in August, according to her LinkedIn profile. Mad River was recently identified as one of 83 California hospitals at heightened risk of closing, cutting services or laying off staff due to the nearly $1 trillion in Medicaid funding cuts in H.R. 1, President Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.” 

On Tuesday we received a copy of a letter of support for Mad River’s hospitalist and general surgeon, Dr. Then Tong, who has worked at the hospital for nine and a half years and was recently told that his contract will not be renewed, several sources said. As of Tuesday, the letter had received 57 signatures and counting. You can read it here. 

The people we’ve interviewed for this story relayed many more specific concerns and allegations about what’s happening at Mad River. For example, they say administrators have usurped the independent authority of the medical staff board in violation of Title 22 regulations; the Staff Development Department, which was widely considered integral to staff competency and regulatory compliance, was recently eliminated; and the work environment has become hostile, rife with fears of retribution for speaking up about these issues.

Several said they’ve filed complaints with state regulators at the California Department of Public Health and/or the Accreditation Commission for Health Care. 

The Outpost will continue to report on these issues.

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