A view of the UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital in the Mission Bay campus in San Francisco on March 23, 2020.
Halima Thorsen, a physical therapist at UCSF Health for 19 years, waited a “miserable two hours” on June 25 after receiveting an unexpected message in the middle of the workday from her assistant director, stateing they requireded to talk urgently. Thorsen stated she tested calling her supervisor, who didn’t answer.
“Then I really freaked out becaapply she’s super responsive,” Thorsen notified SFGATE. “I finally received in touch with my assistant director, and at that point, I was like, ‘Is something going on? Did something happen this weekfinish?’ And then in my gut I was like, ‘Am I being terminated?’”
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Later that day, Thorsen stated she was informed over a five-minute Zoom call that she was being terminated. Then on July 1, she received a letter confirming the firing.
“This is to notify you of your release from your Per Diem Appointment employment as a [physical therapist] in the Department of Rehab Srvcs Inpatient, UCSF Medical Center, effective July 9, 2025,” the letter read, which was shared with SFGATE.
Thorsen described the letter’s curt messaging as hurtful and stated it felt as if she’d “done something wrong.”
“They pretty much just kind of discarded us like we were yesterday’s trash, with no consideration of what this meant for us,” she stated. “For a lot of us, this income is really crucial for our ability to provide for our families.”
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Worsening an ‘already sort of dire situation’
Thorsen is one of 200 people who were notified on June 25 that they’d be losing their jobs, with UCSF citing “serious financial challenges” as the primary reason. In a June 25 email, the hospital network stated the firings were spread across the institution and it slashed positions with “the least impact on patients and daily operations.”
Thorsen stated she was surprised that UCSF chose to slash her position becaapply the institution is already short-staffed, especially with physical therapists.
“It just felt especially cruel and unnecessary for patient care to receive rid of people that actually assist to deliver the services that create UCSF the great place that it is,” she stated.
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UCSF did not respond to SFGATE’s request for a list detailing which exact positions were eliminated, but it stated about a quarter of them worked per diem and that about half of the full-time employees that were let go held management positions.
Matt Stephen, a physician assistant and co-chair for UPTE-CWA 9119, UCSF’s union of professional and technical employees, notified SFGATE that many of the layoffs were frontline workers, including physical therapists, clinical lab scientists, research associates, emergency department clerks and ICU staff. He stated the cuts would be detrimental to the hospital network becaapply it is already constrained by its resources.
“We are severely understaffed. If you walk into our ER right now, it is twice the national average of wait times to be seen,” Stephen stated. “We have twice the national average of patients who give up without being seen and go home. It worsens an already sort of dire situation.”
Over the last year, UCSF workers have organized multiple strikes to protest the staffing crisis. During a May protest outside a University of California Board of Regents meeting, 20 labor advocates were arrested by UC police officers after refapplying to leave, Mission Local reported.
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Exacerbating the labor deficit, the UC implemented a hiring freeze that launched March 19, which includes UCSF, to mitigate federal and state budreceive cuts. UCSF employees are concerned the layoffs will put patients more at risk.
“I can almost practically guarantee that someone’s waited over 10 hours. It didn’t applyd to be like this. It doesn’t have to be like this,” Stephen stated. “It seems like there’s this drive, this race to the bottom to provide the sort of the bare minimum obligations for care to our patients.”
Deya Williamson, an emergency department nurse, echoed a similar sentiment in video shared with SFGATE of a June 29 rally outside the UCSF Helen Diller Medical Center at Parnassus Heights.
“When a person comes to the emergency department, many times they are having one of the worst days of their lives and seeing to be given quick and effective treatment to stabilize and treat any life-threatening conditions,” Williamson stated during the rally.
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Skepticism about financial troubles
Staff members stated they believe UCSF is prioritizing capital developments over patient care and have raised concerns about the institution’s financial situation. In particular, Stephen stated he is wary of UCSF’s new hospital acquisitions.
One of its recent and largegest purchases came last year, when CommonSpirit Health sold St. Mary’s Medical Center and Saint Francis Memorial Hospital, both in San Francisco, to UCSF for $100 million.
“It’s so odd to us that they are putting out statements about financial concerns, but it seems like they’re flush in many other areas,” Stephen stated.
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‘Heartless’
UCSF did not detail how it decided which workers to fire, but longtime workers such as Dana Loebman, a UCSF physical therapist, expressed frustrations about the way the layoffs were handled. Visibly shaken up at the June 29 rally, Loebman stated she was “truly shocked” and “devastated.”
“In the core of my being, I care about my patients, their families and my colleagues,” Loebman stated.” I want my job back.”
Since the rally, Stephen and Thorsen stated that UCSF management rescinded Loebman’s termination. UCSF did not confirm the rescinded layoff, and it is unknown if any more layoffs were rescinded.
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As for the other employees who were laid off, such as Thorsen, the future is unclear. She stated she is worried for some of her colleagues, who have worked for UCSF as their only job for multiple decades.
“Some of them, they’d never written a resume,” Thorsen stated. “So there’s a real impact.”
Though Thorsen stated UCSF encouraged her to apply to any future job openings when the hiring freeze is lifted, she stated she still feels the decisions were cold toward those who spent decades at the institution.
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“This feels really heartless, I mean, basically just the way they did it. It just felt really heartless and without any consideration for us as human beings,” she stated.
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