Layoffs hit Ascension Health, former employees want to know why – WISHTV.com

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) Ascension is eliminating on-site jobs in Indiana and outsourcing them to a contactor based in India instead.

A few of the now former employees told I-Team 8 they were asked to train their replacements.

Monty Teague was a supervisor in the IT department at Ascension St. Vincent Hospital on the north side of Indianapolis. Patients never saw his department, but doctors, nurses and other health care professionals relied on him to do their jobs.

Weknew we were not doctors, but I always told my guys that we were like the guys in the engine room and we are keeping that ship running. We are making those patients able to be fixed. We are giving the doctors the support they need. We will never be seen, but we are the underneath foundation that is running theship,Teague said.

Teague says he was told Ascension was outsourcing or eliminating most of the on-site IT positions at the hospital. As a manager, it was his job to tell his team the news.

[It]is one of the hardest things there is to do, Teague said. You havent done anything wrong but your job is gone.Ihad to do that in the very first round and then they got me, my boss did the same tome. Its justsad.

According topubliclyavailable company financial statements, their bottom line has taken a hit during the pandemic. Marty Pieratt of Indiana Universitys Kelley School of Business says companies looking to cut costs go after salaries first.

I thinkpoliticians liketo say, We have the jobs all coming back here, but the truth is,I think they are still going andIthink they still will go. When anybody thinksof wherethey are going to save money on their bottom line and look better on their financial statements, the quickest, easiest is taking people off the payroll Pieratt said.

Teague says more cuts to the IT staff are coming later this summer. He understands sometimes hard decisions have to be made, but he expected a different approach working for a catholic hospital.

Weused to call them ministries. That is what you called them, ministries, instead of hospitals. And the reason is because you wereministeringto the sick and poor and part of that ministry is to bring them into theChristianfamily. And that is totally gone now. They are not ministries; they are for profit for a few people at thetop, he said.

I-Team 8 reached out to Ascension several times for anexplanationon why they choose to outsource thesepositions. The company never responded to phone calls or emails.

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Layoffs hit Ascension Health, former employees want to know why - WISHTV.com