The Ministry of Health and Social Services said Thursday It plans to reduce 10,000 full -time jobs in several agencies, as part of a wider effort in the Trump administration to restructure many parts of the federal government.
The cuts, part of The “House Reduction” plan of the White HouseThe multiple departments of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was effectively to close or reduce other health agencies, potentially compromising public health efforts.
HHS supervises 13 agencies, including the CDC, the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health.
HHS said Thursday that 28 health service divisions contain “redundant units” and that the restructuring plan will consolidate them in 15 divisions.
“We will eliminate a whole alphabet soup from the departments, while preserving their basic functions by merging them in a new organization called The Administration for Healthy America or Aha,” said HHS secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Among the agencies that should be integrated into the administration for a Healthy America, let us quote the administration of the services of drug addiction and mental health and health resources and administration, which includes a program focused on the treatment of HIV.
Among the divisions eliminated or reduced to the CDC, HHS said, are those who have focused on global health, Interior HIV prevention and injury prevention, such as armed violence.
In total, the CDC will reduce its workforce by approximately 2,400 employees, said Andrew Nixon, spokesperson for HHS. The administration will also move the administration for strategic preparation and response, which manages the country’s emergency stockFrom hhs to the CDC, he said.
The administration will also make reductions in divisions of other agencies responsible for responding to the approval of new drugs, health insurance and the response to epidemics of infectious diseases.
The FDA will reduce its workforce by around 3,500 full -time employees; NIH staff will be reduced by 1,200 employees; And the centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will lose around 300 workers.
Overall, the cuts will reduce the full-time workforce from the health department from 82,000 to 62,000 when combined with its previous layoffs.
According to a memo obtained by NBC News, employees will be informed of their layoff on Friday that Friday.
Nixon said that the reorganization of the CMS would have no impact on Medicare and Medicaid services, nor to affect the FDA examination calendar of drugs, medical devices and food.
He added that “no additional cut is currently planned”.
Larry Levitt, executive vice-president of health policy at KFF, a non-profit group that seeks health policy problems, said government agencies tend to spread over time and benefit from occasional reorganization, but it criticized the Trump administration approach.
“It’s not just a reorganization of HHS,” he said. “It is also a reduction in federal workforce, which will ultimately affect government services. Persons and health care providers may come to wait longer to get help and answer their questions, and which will lead to frustration and delays in services.”
An FDA employee who received a notice from the planned cuts from the agency Thursday morning, feared that medical products exams, including medicines and devices, can be delayed, despite administration insurance.
“The FDA cuts will always affect our mission, it does not matter that they do not directly cut the examiners,” said the employee, who asked not to be identified for fear of the repercussions. “We are unable to revise due to a lot of rear support.”
Thursday cuts were separate from previous attempts by government officials to dismiss thousands of CDC probationary employees and other federal agencies. Two federal judges have since ordered the temporary reinstatement of several of the affected workers.
The leadership of the CDC was notified of plans on Wednesday and was invited to expect an ad Thursday or Friday, according to an agency worker who was not authorized to speak on this subject.
Federal health officials had previously declared that they planned to move the responsibilities of certain departments eliminated to other parts of the HHS.
For example, the Trump administration was considering a plan for move the responsibilities of THE Division o of CDC oF HIV prevention to health Resources and services AdministrationWho does his own work on HIV as part of the Ryan White HIV / AIDS program.
However, the HRSA is mainly focused on the treatment of HIV rather than preventing it, leaving certain HIV defenders concerned so that it can resume progress in prevention.
It was not clear on Thursday if it was still the administration plan. A spokesperson for HHS did not immediately respond to an additional comment request.
Much of the responsibility of the newly reduced CDC agencies will probably be left to Susan Monarez, the choice of Trump to lead the agency and its current actor director.
Earlier this month, The Associated Press reported These five CDC division leaders resigned while the agency was preparing for the cuts.
On Tuesday, the Senate confirmed Dr. Marty Makary, a pancreatic surgeon at Johns Hopkins University, to lead the FDA and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, professor of medicine at Stanford University to lead NIH.
A senatorial committee voted Tuesday to advance the appointment of the former surgeon and television by Dr. Mehmet Oz to direct the CMS.