No hospital laundry employees lost their jobs due to outsourcing, hospital officials say

(The following story corrects an earlier story posted on decorahnews.com.  Several sources had provided us with the information used in the previous story, but that information proved to be incorrect.  New information provided by Winneshiek Medical Center officials corrects that previous story.  The following is our updated story)

No Winneshiek Medical Center employees lost their jobs due to the outsourcing of the hospital's laundry department in favor of hiring a company from Rochester to provide laundry services at the hospital and clinic.

The hospital and clinic laundry is now handled by Textile Care in Rochester, Minnesota.  As part of the switch to Textile Care, the hospital bought all new patient linens, gowns and laundry carts.

Hospital officials say at the time of the outsourcing there were just three employees left in the laundry department.  One of those continued in the department after the outsourcing, working as a liason with Textile Care.  Another transferred to another department within the hospital.  A third retired at their own choice.

Textile Care is a large commercial laundry serving Mayo Clinic and numerous hotels in Rochester.  It was profile in a recent article by the Rochester Post-Bulletin..