CHARLESTON, W.Va. — As working hours have been slashed for over 1,000 employees at the Charleston Area Medical Center in recent weeks, some are turning to the company’s employee emergency fund.
The fund has been in existence for over 15 years and given more than $1.5 million but Bryan Cummings, the Senior Development Officer for CAMC Foundation said April has seen an uptick in applications for the grant funding.
Cummings told MetroNews their normal pace of applications for the $1,000 grant is around 10 to 15 per month but this is not a normal period for anyone during the COVID-19 outbreak.
“Since we’ve started the communication to employees about the COVID relief funds specific to them and instances around the pandemic, we have seen an increase to around 56 applications this month,” he said.
CAMC President and CEO Dave Ramsey told MetroNews on Monday that around 1,450 employees out of the 7,000 in the company are having hours slashed drastically due to services being halted.
On March 31 Justice announced an executive order in place in West Virginia forbidding all elective medical procedures, cutting the need for some workers.
The fund is available to all CAMC employees that qualify in the application process. Cummings that they are seeing the main qualifying reason during this period is the loss of wages.
Other qualifying reasons are medical expenses, funeral expenses, travel expenses, replacement of essential personal items, and emergency housing cost.
Any employee that needs financial assistance during COVID-19 are asked to contact human resources.
“We have not denied any applications based on the number of people applying and we certainly don’t anticipate having to do that,” Cummings said.