Notices sent to Allegheny General Hospital - Suburban Campus employees and the state labor department have raised concerns about a massive lay-off at the Bellevue hospital, but West Penn Allegheny Health System is saying the concern is premature, and not warranted.

WPAHS plans to change the way the local hospital is used, eliminating inpatient care, outpatient surgeries and the emergency room later this summer. Long term acute care services will be broadened, and an urgent care center will replace the E.R.

Because of those changes, said WPAHS spokesman Dan Laurent, the health system is required by law to give notice that employee jobs may be affected and/or eliminated. That required notice was given to all 344 people currently employed at the hospital, he said, but that does not mean that all of those people will be unemployed in August.

Laurent said that WPAHS expects that many of the employees who now work in the emergency, surgery or inpatient departments will move to other positions within WPAHS or with the new services at Suburban Campus.