Ontario, Calif.-based Prime Healthcare Services — the new owner of Denville, N.J-based Saint Clare's Health System — has laid off 50 hospital employees, according to NJ.com.
Prime bought Saint Clare's in a $62 million deal, which closed Oct. 1.
When the deal went through, the new system — Prime St. Clare's — agreed to keep "substantially all" employees.
However, Prime spokeswoman Elizabeth Nikels said the layoffs were made because the new system was given access to more corporate support from Prime.
"We reduced our workforce at St. Clare's by less than 2 percent, most of them in non-clinical areas," Ms. Nikels said. "Substantially all employees were retained, but the layoff was necessary to align our staffing with current volumes. A layoff of any size is never easy, and we expect this to be a temporary measure."
Ms. Nikels added that the number of employees at Prime-acquired systems typically increases within a year of acquisition.