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Death raises questions after hospital closure

A patient who predicted he wouldn’t survive a move from a now-closed Illinois charity hospital has died three weeks after his transfer to a nursing home, family and friends said Thursday.

The death of Michael Yanul, 58, who had muscular dystrophy and breathed with a ventilator, raises questions about how Cook County managed patient transfers while closing the hospital in the South suburbs.

Facing a multimillion-dollar budget deficit, Cook County converted Oak Forest Hospital to an outpatient center in August to save money. Earlier this year, protesters opposed to closing the hospital carried Yanul’s photo, enlarged to poster size, to several public hearings. They said they wanted officials to see the face of patients who would be most affected.

The last nine patients, including Yanul, were moved into private homes and other health care facilities by the end of August.

Yanul, who had been cared for at Oak Forest for 17 years, moved into a nursing home chosen by his family Aug. 31. Yanul’s brother, Tom Yanul, said he died Sept. 20 of pneumonia and a blood infection.

Cook County Health spokeswoman Marisa Kollias said the county has “an elite team” that makes sure transfers go smoothly. Following standard practice in the health care system, the county is not officially tracking patients after the transfers, Kollias said.

“Cook County Health and Hospitals System is extremely saddened by the death of Mr. Yanul,” she said.

Tom Yanul has filed a complaint about the nursing home with the Illinois Department of Public Health. He said Oak Lawn Respiratory and Rehab broke promises for how Michael Yanul would be cared for, lacked needed equipment such as a heated humidifier for Yanul’s ventilator and didn’t educate staff about Yanul’s needs.

A phone message left for the Oak Lawn nursing home’s administrator wasn’t immediately returned.

Transferring ventilator patients requires detailed planning, including making sure the new facility has similar equipment, said Steven Sittig, a respiratory therapist and pediatric transport clinical specialist at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. Sittig chairs the transport specialty section of the American Association for Respiratory Care.

“The logistics of it are very complex. It goes beyond the normal discharge planning,” Sittig said. “As the sending facility, you make sure all the fine points of the patient’s care are relayed on, such as the need for active humidification, the time and involvement for (tracheotomy tube) care, ventilator settings and that the staff is knowledgeable of the ventilator and how to troubleshoot it.”

Juanita Gibbs, a friend of Yanul’s, was highly involved in his care for many years. She said Yanul loved the care he received at the now-closed hospital and predicted he would die if he had to move.

“He didn’t want to be moved because he knew the outcome,” Gibbs said. “He said he was signing his death warrant.”

Yanul told The Associated Press in April that he was “devastated” to think Oak Forest might close: “The doctors and nurses here have kept me alive. I can’t breathe on my own.”