St. Mary's filled positions while planning layoffs

Covenant Health, the Massachusetts-based parent of St. Mary’s Health System, continued to hire people even as it prepared to lay them off and outsource their jobs. A spokeswoman for Covenant said three to five people were in the hiring process in Lewiston — and two were actually hired — when Covenant finalized its plans to drop 78 Lewiston positions and for Ohio-based Ensemble Health Partners to take over another 89 Lewiston jobs in coding, billing and payment processing.