INDIANAPOLIS — Ascension St. Vincent, which is a Catholic organization, is outsourcing several IT jobs at its hospital on the north side of Indianapolis.
The jobs will be going to a company based in India, leaving several Hoosiers out of a job. One of them is Marty Teague, who was an IT supervisor and tells WISH-TV that he also felt that he and his team were the core of the hospital that kept things running.
“We worked all kinds of hours,” Teague said. We knew we weren’t doctors, I always told my guys that we were like the guys in the engine room. We will never be seen, but we are the underneath foundation that is running the ship.”
Teague says he was told Ascension was outsourcing or eliminating most of the on-site IT positions at the hospital. Public records of the hospital’s finances show that the coronavirus pandemic likely took a big bite out of the hospital’s bottom line.
Marty Pieratt, a business professor at Indiana University, says in cost-cutting efforts businesses usually make cuts to the payroll first.
“I think politicians like to say, ‘We have the jobs all coming back here,’ but the truth is, I think they are still going and I think they still will go,” Pieratt said. When anybody thinks of where they 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.”
Teague always believed that as a Catholic institution, Ascension St, Vincent was more of a ministry rather than a hospital as part of their effort to provide care and bring people into the Christian faith.
“They’re not a ministry,” Teague realizes. “They are a for-profit for a few people at the top.”
Ascension St. Vincent did not say why they are outsourcing IT jobs.
