The anonymous caller suggested that poor management by hospital chief Kevin Rogols was to blame for the decision to cut the hours of Johnston Memorial employees. For its part, JMH blames a sudden drop in patients.

Our own thinking is that people working fewer hours are still glad to have a job. That is to say, the hospital could have chosen to lay off employees.

We’ll let folks with business degrees debate whether layoffs or reduced hours are the better decision. Our concern is for the people who receive care through Johnston Memorial Hospital, which provides a growing variety of services today.

Like any business, Johnston Memorial factors wages into the cost of its services. That means a bill for surgery pays the surgeon, sure, but also the anesthesiologist, the nurse, even the housekeeper who cleans the room after the patient leaves.

Johnston Memorial expects its reduced hours to save the hospital about $750,000 over the course of the summer. That’s $750,000 the hospital will not have to pass along to its customers.

Johnston County’s public hospital is in a competitive market, and its chief competitors are among the best and best-known health-care providers in the country. That leaves the hospital little room for financial mistakes if it expects to capture its share of the county’s health-care market.

We sympathize with those hospital employees who are working and earning less this summer. But we think their sacrifice will make the hospital stronger in the long haul, and we know that patients will appreciate saving $750,000 this summer.