The
Amelia T. Wood Health Center will not be affected by the job cuts IU
Health announced Thursday, said an official at the IU Health Ball Memorial Hospital.
Will
Henderson, director of public relations and marketing at the hospital, said Ball
Memorial is cutting 100 jobs due to a $5-million budget shortage. He said they
will offer their employees early retirement, and based on how many take it,
adjust the cuts from there.
“It’s always unfortunate when
people lose their jobs,” he said. “In the grand scheme of things, I guess we
are lucky.”
IU
Health, as a whole, will cut 800 positions from various facilities.
Ball Memorial has 3,000 employees currently, being the largest non-government employer in East Central Indiana, according to its website.
The
university contracts with IU Health to run the Health Center, said Kent Bullis,
medical director of the Health Center.
Bullis said he would have
been surprised if they lost employees due to the cuts for IU Health Ball
Memorial Hospital.
"Ball
State University, through the student Health Center, fees pays for the budget of
the student Health Center,” Bullis said. “And we feel as though we run the
Health Center in a very lean way and that we only employ the employees we
need in the first place to provide the services that we need for the
students."
Bullis
said he is not aware of all the information that went into IU Health's
decision.
"I assume it's what they need to do to keep the company running," he said. "I think it's unfortunate for the people who lost their jobs."
