SAN PABLO – Doctors Medical Center San Pablo/Pinole has posted 61 jobs that nursing assistants — including more than 60 in the process of being laid off — could apply for, hospital officials said. Twenty-six of the jobs would come with benefits.

The new jobs would go some way toward the hospital’s goal of rehiring all the laid-off workers, said hospital spokeswoman Gisela Hernandez. Twenty-four, including eight full-time, would be in a skilled nursing facility opening on the Pinole campus and would begin Dec. 12 at the latest; others would be at the San Pablo campus and would begin Nov. 29, she said.

The hospital late last week postponed the effective date of the layoffs from Nov. 15 to Nov. 20. On Monday, the hospital postponed the date again, to Nov. 28, Hernandez said.

“We absolutely did not want the effective layoffs to occur the week of Thanksgiving,” Hernandez said.

The layoffs would save $1.5 million a year, part of a $9 million-a-year structural loss the community hospital needs to eliminate to stay in business, officials say.

Dana Simon of United Healthcare Workers-West said Monday he had not heard about the openings. While 26 jobs with benefits would be “better than zero,” most of the laid-off workers, if rehired, could still be stuck with part-time positions without benefits, Simon said.

Moreover, eliminating the nursing assistants’ current positions would affect patient care as well as place added burdens on licensed vocational nurses and registered nurses, Simon said.

Hospital officials have said the layoffs would not affect patient care.

“We basically changed the manner in which we would use certified nursing assistants at San Pablo,” Hernandez said. That includes creating the positions of “floaters,” or nursing assistants not assigned to any particular unit; “transporters,” who move patients throughout the hospital; and “sitters,” for patients who need constant watch, she said.

Simon’s union has filed an unfair labor practices complaint with the state and sued the hospital alleging the layoffs are illegal on the grounds, among others, that there should have been 60 days’ notice.

The lawsuit is without merit, said Peggy Lipper, the hospital’s vice president for corporate development.

The hospital and the union are set to meet in another bargaining session Thursday.

Kind of makes this useless at this point.