The nearly 1,000 Hawaii Medical Center workers who will lose their jobs when the bankrupt hospitals shut down through the next few weeks are expected to push state unemployment to its highest rate in almost two years.

The losses will not only add to jobless rolls, but bring down the number of hospital workers statewide to year 2000 levels at a time when Hawaii’s senior population is rapidly expanding, the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism said.

"While most of the other states have declining unemployment rates, it turns out our labor market condition is getting worse," said Eugene Tian, the department’s acting economist. "In the beginning of the year, (Hawaii had) the sixth-lowest unemployment rate in the nation. Now we rank 12th lowest. We’re not doing well."

The jobless casualties due to the collapse of the former St. Francis Medical Centers in Liliha and Ewa will push the state’s 6.5 percent unemployment rate to 6.7 percent — the highest since April 2010, the department said. Hawaii hospital jobs grew only by 957, or 0.7 percent per year, over the past decade.

"The hardest part, in my opinion, besides the loss in jobs, is the effect it will have in terms of the health care industry — the patients who are being served less, the cost of picking up HMC’s slack," said Kaimuki resident Fern Palabay, 38, an HMC corporate compliance and risk management specialist. "People being sicker longer, not getting the care they need — those are all things that affect the economy."

Making matters worse is uncertainty in the job market, which employees say is already saturated, particularly for highly skilled workers in specialized fields of medicine.

"It’s devastating — the uncertainty makes it even worse," said HMC-East critical care nurse Patrick Kelly, who along with his wife, Melanie — head of HMC-West’s emergency department — is now out of a job. "If there were plentiful jobs out there, it would be less of an issue, but because it’s such a tight market, everyone’s going to have to tighten their belts. The loss is going to be huge. Some people will have no choice but to leave (for the mainland), given the cost of living."

Kelly said he and his wife, both 50, with two young children, are at a point in their careers when they should be making the most income and saving for retirement.

Of the employees who will be laid off, one-third are nurses, according to the state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations. Exacerbating the situation is a temporary nursing surplus due to people re-entering the profession or holding off retirement during the recession.

"It’s going to be a huge burden for the whole system, government and taxpayers," Kelly added. "Most of the nurses I know are the primary breadwinners and carry insurance for their families."

What’s more, because HMC is shutting down, employees won’t be eligible for health insurance under the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, or COBRA, which gives laid-off workers and their families the option to continue group coverage for a limited period of time.

Melanie Kelly, who took a part-time job as medical director for Pearl City Urgent Care as part of her family’s contingency plan, said HMC employees are scrambling for work. The urgent care facility opened Nov. 28 but isn’t expected to be profitable for at least six months.

"I know that a lot of folks are looking desperately for work at every level from housekeepers to security, X-ray people all the way up to physicians, and right now there’s not a lot available anywhere on Oahu," she said. "It’s just the uncertainty during this season going into the holidays — not knowing what’s going to happen — that’s so awful."

With baby boomers now reaching retirement age, having enough medical providers to meet the demand is a serious public health concern. Health officials already are projecting significant shortages — in the thousands — for doctors and registered nurses to care for more than 280,000 baby boomers 65 or older by 2020.

"This is very tragic — we have people who have been very dedicated, committed and loyal who have given their all for people in need," said William Loui, chief of oncology for the Queen’s Medical Center and medical director for HMC’s bone marrow transplant program. "These are qualified, well-trained people who are going to lose jobs, and there’s no equivalent replacement jobs out there. Unfortunately, not everyone is going to be able to stay in Hawaii."

Hawaii Pacific Health, which operates Kapiolani and Straub hospitals, said it had received several hundred applications from HMC workers as of Wednesday and already has made some offers.

"At any one time we have as many as several hundred openings, but it doesn’t mean they’ll match the applicants with what our needs are," said Virginia Pressler, HPH executive vice president and chief strategic officer. "Usually there’s a need for experienced workers. I just don’t know how many of them can be accommodated."

HPH has expressed interest in acquiring both HMC campuses once they revert to their former owner — and main creditor — St. Francis Healthcare System of Hawaii.

"If we were to acquire both campuses, we would work with other parties to re-purpose the East campus into long-term care," Pressler said. "We would reopen West as a community hospital and put in the electronic information technology that it needs and the improvements into the facilities, so that would take some time."

Ewa Beach resident Edie Wall, 54, an HMC-West echocardiography technologist, won’t be able to wait for that possibility. Instead, she is preparing to move to the mainland in mid-January and join a temporary agency since there aren’t any local jobs available in her specialized field.

"I need full time, and I need it to be immediate work," she said. "I can’t wait around and look and see if an opening is going to happen sometime in the future. I have to pay my bills; I can’t go live on the beach. I am overwhelmed because I’ve got to pack and move and close up everything and get ready to be on the mainland and start working again."

Glads Bautista, an HMC-West nuclear medicine technologist with no local job prospects, said she can live off her savings for up to a year, but that will just push her retirement even further. Some of her colleagues, however, don’t have that option.

"Some of them, before payday they exhaust their money. Some already used their money for Christmas shopping," she said. "There are no jobs for them. They have to compete against each other."

HMC workers are feeling a huge sense of loss, not only with income, but with the family they have become over the years, Palabay said.

"The overriding emotion for me is the extreme sadness. These people who I see every day — they’re my family," she said. "It’s a huge sense of loss. A lot of us are frightened, of course, even seeing assurances from other health care organizations that they may be able to hire some of our staff, I don’t know that everybody will find a job, and that includes me."