TMH plans Panama City job fair after Bay Medical layoff decision in the wake of Hurricane Michael

Tallahassee Democrat

A building at Bay Medical Center in Panama City, Fl., shows damage shortly after Hurricane Michael passed through.

Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare is hosting a job fair Wednesday on the heels of a decision by Bay Medical-Sacred Heart to lay off half its staff — about 800 employees.

The layoffs are the latest economic blow after Hurricane Michael decimated the beach-front community on Oct. 10. Before the storm, Bay Medical had 300 physicians and nearly 1,700 employees, according to its website.

The 323-bed hospital based in Panama City plans to reopen at about a quarter of its size, a report from the News Herald said.

TMH, the largest hospital in the Big Bend region, already had a job fair planned with the goal of attracting talent searching for work following the monster storm, said Steve Capenos, the hospital's director of the Center for Healthcare Careers.

"The timing of the layoff makes this event more of a need than we anticipated," he said.

The job fair will be from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday at St. Andrews Bay Yacht Club, 218 Bunkers Cove Road, Panama City. Capenos couldn't say how many vacancies needed to be filled but said TMH is looking to hire for a range of professions and fields.

Some of those include registered nurses, patient care assistants, medical assistants, surgical, laboratory, monitor and cardiovascular technicians, among others that are not clinical in nature.

Buildings at Bay Medical Center in Panama City, Fl., shows damage shortly after Hurricane Michael passed through.

TMH is constructing a $250 million surgical center next door to its main building. In addition to the need for more employees to meet current staff demands and anticipated growth, TMH needs more employees to cope with a surge in new patients from the disaster zone.

"Hurricane Michael had a significant impact on hospitals in the Panhandle. Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare began seeing an increase in patient volumes soon after the hurricane," said Dr. Dean Watson, vice president and chief health operations officer. "Since some hospitals are not able to return to full operations in the near future, we anticipate TMH’s increased patient volume to continue."

Contact TaMaryn Waters at tlwaters@tallahassee.com or follow @TaMarynWaters on Twitter.