Erie County Laying Off More Than 100 People At Trauma Medical Center

Thursday, January 29, 2026, was a rough day for about 150 government employees at Western New York's main trauma hospital, who received pink slips from their supervisors. Many of them would be out of a job by the end of the week, and that fact, in addition to being a major disruption to the lives of people in the Buffalo area, has several people in positions of power asking lots of questions.

According to the Buffalo News, dozens of employees at the Erie County Medical Center on Buffalo's east side will soon be without a job, and the reasons why seem to come down to a consistent problem we've been having lately.

About 3% of the total unionized workforce at the medical center is being cut, and management staff at the hospital will have to take off at least one-week of unpaid leave during the year.

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Leadership at the hospital blames insurance companies, which are slow to pay claims plus big cuts in federal medicaid spending are causing the hospital to need to reduce costs.

Because ECMC is the area's main trauma hospital and the primary safety-net hospital, the medical center takes all patients regardless of their income or ability to pay. This, of course, means the hospital has higher costs and expenses and often has to absorb the cost of providing services to those who cannot, or will not, pay.

Those expenses eventually fall on taxpayers to support, and since funding for public services is being on the federal level, that means the hospital has to make up the deficit somewhere.

Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said on a social media post that he was sad, but not surprised, to hear about the cuts due to the fact that the nation needs serious healthcare reform.