About 150 workers of the former St. Francis hospital system will be laid off by new owner Hawaii Medical Center LLC, officials from the company said yesterday.

Hawaii Medical acquired the money-losing St. Francis for $46.5 million last month and is restructuring its operations.

Danelo Canete, Hawaii Medical's chief executive officer, said the new owners originally planned to use attrition and not layoffs. But the hospitals' finances worsened during the past eight months, he said.

The layoffs will allow Hawaii Medical to "be viable in six months instead of in bankruptcy," Canete added.

Hawaii Medical employs about 1,500 workers at the former St. Francis Medical Center on Liliha Street and St. Francis Medical Center-West in 'Ewa.

Company officials notified employees at the two hospitals Thursday and yesterday of the cuts.

Jo Ann Rodriguez, a nursing aide at the former St. Francis West hospital since 2002, said she was terminated yesterday while on workers' compensation leave.

"Everybody who received their papers were crying," Rodriguez said.

"It was just terrible."

Hawaii Medical's handling of the layoffs has prompted one of the hospitals' unions to file a complaint with federal authorities.

The Hawaii Teamsters and Allied Workers Union Local 996 filed an unfair labor practice complaint against the hospitals Thursday, saying it failed to give the required 21-day notice.

Canete said the company followed the proper protocols and that the layoffs were a "last resort."

He noted that the hospitals typically experience an employee turnover of 25 percent a year, but the turnover has been much lower this year, prompting the job cuts.

Company spokesman Chris Parsons said the original plan was to whittle down the staff slowly through attrition.

"But with the financial situation the way it was, they had to do it right away," he said.

Previous owners St. Francis Healthcare System of Hawaii, which opened the Liliha Street hospital in 1927, have been under severe financial pressure for years because of recent government reductions in Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements, the 2002 nurses' strike and costly new technologies.

For the year ending June 30, 2005, St. Francis lost $611,000, which was down sharply from the year-earlier's $12.2 million loss.

When Hawaii Medical purchased the hospitals, it said it would invest about $32 million over five years to upgrade the facilities and nurse the hospitals back to profitability.

Unlike the nonprofit St. Francis system, Hawaii Medical is a for-profit company. Its owners include Kansas-based CHA LLC and the Hawaii Physicians Group, which includes 130 local doctors.

Reach Rick Daysog at rdaysog@honoluluadvertiser.com.