Valley Baptist Health System has announced it will implement temporary furloughs at its hospitals in Brownsville, Harlingen and Weslaco.

The furloughs are in response to measures the health system is dealing with because of COVID-19.

According to VBMC Health System officials, the furloughs will be for certain jobs “where we need, or are required to, limit acitvity due to the current environment.”

“We know that this is hard on our colleagues. As an organization, the health and wellness of our employees is equally paramount, and we are providing all furloughed employees with medical benefits support consistent with their elections and at no cost to them, covering the employee and employer contributions of premiums for medical, employee/spouse critical illness and supplemental life during this time,” officials said in a press release.

Tenet Corporate executive team and members are donating portions of their salaries to the system’s Care Fund, which is available to all employees impacted to apply for grants to offset any financial hardship posed by COVID-19.

Officials said they hope they can return impacted staff to service once they navigate through “this unprecedented time and our core business gets back to normal.”