POTTSTOWN, Pa.- Major cuts were announced at Tower Health on Friday and hundreds are now out of a job.

The Health Network says the layoffs are due to what it calls financial challenges facing healthcare providers. Tower says expenses are increasing and they need to streamline services.

“We didn’t see this coming,” says Lori Domin, President of Pottstown Nurses United. “We’re still trying to process this.”

It was a sudden blow to 350 employees in the Tower Health Network after hundreds of layoffs were announced Friday; more than 130 of them are happening at Pottstown Hospital.

Tower Health to lay off 350 workers, including 131 at Pottstown Hospital

“They’re actually going to be closing several departments,” says Domin. “They’re going to be closing our intensive care, our cancer infusion center, outpatient endoscopy suite, they’re going to remove the ‘float pool’ nurses, and also close the second floor med surge step down unit.”

Renita Robinson was a nurse at Pottstown hospital who was let go in this round of layoffs.

“I’m just still in shock trying to process everything that’s happening,” says Robinson. “It’s just hard right now for me to figure out what is the next plan without even knowing anything by management.”

An Internal Communication to employees from Tower Health President & CEO Michael Stern, pointed to increasing financial pressures and uncertainty of health care systems nationwide as part of the reason for the cuts.

Domin says they just finished contract negotiations in August.

“They really fought us on the layoff language, which we kept asking them are you going to be laying people off and they were like ‘no, no, no we’re not doing that,'” says Domin. “Then here we are 2-3 months later and that’s what they’re doing.”

The nurses says these cuts will create transportation challenges for patients and detract from care.

“Where are these patients going to go,” says Robinson. “It’s quite a distance to go to Reading Hospital, and these are older citizens of the community at Pottstown Hospital that rely heavily on Pottstown Hospital for treatment.”

A Tower Health Spokesperson said the large number of cuts at Pottstown Hospital came because the number of patients being seen there is well below capacity.

Pottstown Nurses United tells WFMZ they plan to meet next week with members to discuss how to move forward.