Sentara Healthcare expands its living wage initiative for employees

ALBEMARLE COUNTY, Va. (WVIR) - Employees at Sentara Martha Jefferson Hospital will soon have a few extra dollars in their pockets. The Sentara Hospital System as a whole is raising the minimum wage for staff.

As of Sunday, January 5, employees at the hospital are now getting paid $15 an hour. This is to make sure they have a livable wage.

On December 31, 2019, Sentara Healthcare announced its plan to increase its minimum wage.

More than 520 employees at Sentara Martha Jefferson Hospital are impacted by the change. Previously, they were only making $12.75.

"System-wide about 5,700 hundred employees, and one of the things we thought was very important is that we wanted to ensure that not only do we support our employees for the great work that they do here every day,” Human Resources Director Stacey Baker said.

Sentara is working to support sustainable growth providing competitive pay and benefits to its employees.

"We also wanted to support them and their families in this wage increase,” Baker said.

Departments that got a pay raise include clerical, service and clinical.

"Those specific positions are food services, our admissions department, our environmental services, nursing assistants and medical assistants as well,” Baker said. "Our team members are our best asset and we want to make sure we're doing our very best to support them in every way we can as an organization."

Sentara Healthcare is working to increase pay for all their employees by January 2022.

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