Thread regarding Ascension Health layoffs

Her LinkedIn page as of April 2022 still says she is the President of the Central Region for St. Vincent Indianapolis. Can someone confirm whether this is true or not. I hope it is not true, but stranger things have happened.

I have worked for Ascension in the past. Very toxic culture! The only bright spot in my time there was Erica! She was always willing to sit down and listen. If I had worked for her directly I would probably have stayed! I hope she resigns and goes to work for an employer that appreciates her! I agree with her statement, if you don't like working for an employer you have every right to go some place else! Life is all about choices!

Most of the people posting on hear have lost their rationality. Ascension does not owe you a job. It’s not ok to post internal meetings to social. Get on with your life. Ge-z.

I have worked with Erica in the past and would work with her again if I had the chance! She is a great leader and truly cares about the clinicians and patients! Running any healthcare organization is a challenge under the best of times and the last 18mo. has been an even bigger challenge. Ascension is a toxic place to work and they hid behind their "catholic ministry" talking points. The intense pressure from St. Louis would cause many to cave. At the same time taking a comment "out of context" by a "former" employee is pathetic. In spite of the extreme pressure, Erica has always cared deeply and pushed for the best for all of the staff. I hope she leaves Ascension and finds a position in a loving, embracing environment. They won't find another leader to give their heart and soul everyday only to be disrespected and bullied. Why have we become a society that can't value each other?

This lady barely pulled 5 years working as a nurse and that was in the or. No er or ICU or floor experience where the real sh-t goes down. She should have never been able to move to this position but that's how most healthcare organizations work anymore the lazy as--s are the ones who become managment. Well haha ascension it blew up in your face.

I also read that part of her diatribe was telling the mostly female audience that they should be lucky they didn't live in Afghanistan. Yes, make this wretched executive famous!!

Money talks and it will take patients leaving the Business for change to happen.

Many executives have the same thoughts as Erica Wehrmeister. They just would never make the comments to the employees doing the day to day work. Erica may be fired over this but many others at the top have the same thoughts.

St Vincent managers are under pressure about numbers and patient ratings, coming from regional presidents like Erica. An obsession I’ve been a part of, passed down to bedside nurses. Nothing wrong with quality and safety indicators like reducing infection rates, decreasing pressure ulcers and increased patient satisfaction rates but it’s pushed beyond reason. Once I was in the middle of a critical patient trying to start IV epinephrine for a low blood when I was ask to stop, check if a mouth care kit had a date wrote on it and make sure it was used every 2 hours, see if I can get rid of a Foley catheter or central line on a critical patient. I think this is a form to talk about this. What takes the nurse away from caring for your family? How else can we get rid of the upper management that are paid 6 figure salaries to think it’s appropriate to interrogate a nurse about a pressure ulcer like we caused it despite the more obvious causes.

Very cool that the PR and Executive team are reading this forum. Greetings.
She is a symptom of the disease at Ascension. Senior leaders who disrespect their teams and wonder why people leave or complain are disconnected.

fact is, it is true, if you are unhappy with your employer, it's your choice to stay or leave. If you stay in a job that you don't like, it's nobody's fault but your own.

@5vzu+1czwnBdC
Just throwing THIS out there.

If hospital E-levels don't want to end up on social media, they shouldn't act like theory-X as--s!!!

Just throwing this out there.

This was an internal meeting. Yes, it was poor leadership but internal meetings don’t belong on Tiktok or any social media.

This is a form of the new way of making a point by posting your dirty laundry on social media.

She should resign!

https://www.indystar.com/story/news/health/2021/09/01/ascension-health-tiktok-controversy-executives-comments-go-viral/5678233001/

Ascension ruined all of our hospitals.

I have worked for Ascension for years. When they first acquired our hospital we immediately lost vacation time, sick time, other benefits and the cost of insurance went up. Our pay is lower than surrounding health care organizations but when it’s brought up the response is always “We’ve looked into your concern and our salaries are competitive.” Raises are minimal, if at all. This is disheartening, especially when you see that Ascension’s President and CEO is paid around $15 million per year. Our most recent CEO sounds like Erica Wehrmeister. She is a bit of a bully and has a leadership team under her that toe her line while bad things happen to those who don’t toe her line, she says she has an open door policy but employees are afraid to use it, concerns that are brought to her are usually met with “We are aware and it is being addressed”, but then never is. I believe people like this are popular with Ascension as long as Joseph Impicciche is getting the wants, period. If these local leaders are exposed for what they truly are, suddenly Ascension acts as though they had no clue.
Employees are pushed to their breaking points at times but mostly just to exhaustion…..but every so often we get an employee appreciation day and can get a free ice cream sundae.

Inciting or Inciteful not insightful

Erica should be fired . She has no empathy to the nurses . She just want to achieve her bonus . Selfish.. she is only thinking herself . Lots of medical employees are over work due to Pandemic . They need empathetic CEO not ERICA. Please fire her …

The thing is , she is not the only one at Ascension who has said if you don’t like it, leave! We have been told that for years.

Ascension shouldn’t be surprised by what the organization supported and rewarded from Wehrmeister. Years of caustic and hostile meetings where she lost her temper, called reports names and demanding people be terminated for disagreeing or just not liking an employee.

High level employees who were terminated or resigned should be interviewed by by people other that Wehrmeister’s HR department, which has covered and protected her for years.

And where have the executives who Wehrmeister reports to been? No one knows. No one knows when they last visited the hospital or attended any meetings at the hospital.

Indianapolis TV station has picked up the story.
Ascension statement is the usual PR double-speak. "We hear your concerns....blah blah blah." Wish I made her 300k+ and could get away with being so disconnected. And people wonder why employees consider unionization.

Unfortunately this is not an isolated behavior for this person. Her bullying, lying and in insightful behavior has been supported by the local and national leadership for years and in the mean time, pushed many great people out of the organization. She and her boss should be terminated while the nursing union organizes

Par for the course with Ascension leadership, unfortunately.

What a disgrace. if she worked for me I would first teach her how to be a human being. Then I would make her lazy a-s do rounds for month. See what your employees do. You are a great example of what’s wrong. You forgot the job the people you are in charge of do. FIRED. That’s what you deserve.

RESIGN

Epic fail so glad to leave this company very soon 8 years and they make me feel like a chip on the board to be moved around. Severance package here I come

The truth is she probably has no idea how to work at bedside and couldn’t do what these poor nurses have been doing for over a year now. I say she should resign or be fired. She’s absolutely disgusting.