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Indiana University Health will lay off nearly 100 workers in Martinsville as its hospital there stops admitting patients for overnight stays April 1.
One third of the 96 displaced workers at IU Health Morgan Hospital will be nurses, with the rest made up of respiratory therapists, pharmacists, food workers and support staff, according to a notice IU Health filed Tuesday with the Indiana Department of Workforce Development.
The laid-off workers will receive severance packages and outplacement services, including help applying for open jobs at other IU Health facilities.
IU Health Morgan Hospital first announced its change in strategy in August. It will still see patients on an outpatient basis. But if patients need to stay overnight, they will be transferred to other facilities.
“Since making the decision last year to transform our hospital to an outpatient care facility, we knew such action would likely be necessary,” Doug Puckett, CEO of IU Health Morgan, told the Reporter-Times newspaper in Martinsville. “Still, it was a painful decision to make and it is painful for those team members whose jobs will be eliminated.”
The transformed facility will still offer a 24-hour emergency room, outpatient procedures, cardiac rehab and other therapy services, cancer care, diagnostic imaging, lab testing and physician consultations.
In September, IU Health Chief Financial Officer Ryan Kitchell said the changes in Martinsville might be replicated at more IU Health hospitals around the state.
“It will be an ambulatory site, where we will be doing a lot of outpatient activity, as well as still having all of the assets and benefits of IU Health across the system accessible for the folks in Martinsville and the greater Morgan County area, where you’ve got both Bloomington and our downtown physicians and hospitals within a very short drive there,” Kitchell said.
He described the changes at IU Health Morgan County Hospital as “our first big investment in an ambulatory care model that we will look at across the rest of the state and see where else there are communities where that makes sense to do.”
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