With the future uncertain for a medical imaging center in the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, all 60 center employees received layoff notices last month.

The Fundus Photograph Reading Center has acquired a debt of $4.6 million, which leadership at the medical school learned about “very recently,” Lisa Brunette, UW Health spokesperson, said in an email to The Badger Herald. Due to serious financial losses, the center had to lay off all its employees, she said.

The Fundus Photograph Reading Center, which opened in 1972, evaluates and interprets ophthalmic, or eye, images in clinical studies and works with study leaders to conduct high-quality trails, Brunette said.

The center was previously funded largely through contracts with organizations and through conducting clinical trails, she said.

All of the center’s employees received layoff notices and some retire or be reassigned to other jobs, Brunette said. Most employees are academic staff of the university and a few are classified staff, so they will have up to six months of notice before their layoff is effective and will continue to receive their university benefits during that time, she said.

Brunette said UW is currently exploring options to determine how to provide the services the center previously provided.

She said it is too early to say what the future of the center would be and could not say if there was a possibility of reopening the center in the future.

In a video obtained by the Wisconsin State Journal, UW Medical School Dean Robert Golden told Fundus employees there had been funding problems with the center for three years but he had not become aware of their severity until recently.

The center still has 23 active studies and its lease that does not expire until 2015, Brunette told the Wisconsin State Journal.