St. Mary’s criticized for closing hospital
CHICAGO — The owner of Madison St. Mary’s Hospital is under fire in the south Chicago suburbs for closing a hospital there while planning to open one in Janesville.
The Chicago Tribune reported that SSM Health Care announced a week ago that it would close St. Francis Hospital in Blue Island, Ill., because it was losing money due to a flood of uninsured patients.
SSM Health Care also is the parent company of St. Mary’s.
Mercy Health System officials in Janesville were quick to pick up on the news Thursday and to point it out to reporters.
“The timing of the announcement, with the new hospital located in a more prosperous region, provided a new opportunity for some to criticize SSM Health Care’s decision to close St. Francis,” according to the Chicago Tribune.
St. Francis is projected to lose $20 million this year.
St. Francis is a 401-bed hospital owned by the St. Louis-based SSM, described on the St. Francis Web site as “one of the nation’s largest Catholic health care systems.”
St. Francis completed a $34 million expansion in 2003.
Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., who has worked to keep St. Francis open, reacted to the Janesville news by saying SSM should have its tax-exempt status revoked, the Tribune reported.
In an internal memo obtained by the Tribune, SSM’s chief executive, Sister Mary Jean Ryan, described the timing of the Janesville announcement as “difficult.”
“However, the Janesville hospital has been in the planning stages for years, and capital for the project was approved by SSM Health Care in July of 2007,” Ryan’s memo states, according to the Tribune.
SSM said it tried three years ago to build a new hospital in the more affluent Chicago suburb of Orland Park as a way to mitigate the company’s losses in Blue Island.
The Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board rejected the proposal, saying Orland Park had excess hospital beds.
Wisconsin has no oversight of hospital siting. Its former certificate-of-need program was dumped in the late 1980s, said Sen. Judy Robson, D-Beloit.
Rush suggested that if an Orlando Park hospital could have staved off the St. Francis closing, then a new hospital in Janesville could serve the same purpose.
Apr 14, 2008 at 12:46 p.m.
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That's unfortunate, but it doesn't take an economics degree to realize that losing $20 million dollars in a year is going to have major ramifications on your system as a whole. If everyone wants this hospital to stay open, how do you feel about your premiums and copays going up by 10%, and helping out those less fortunate? It really emphasizes the need for reform in the whole health care system. On a lighter note, here's a great chance for Javon Bea to finally get his toehold in Illinois. He could use his $14.4 million salary to buy the hospital sale at a fire sale price and do good to boot. And hey, he already has a residence in the Chicagoland area.
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