Case made for open heart surgery
You won't hear Delnor-Community Hospital officials using the term "rejected" when speaking about what happened to their proposal before a state board seeking to perform open-heart surgeries.
When the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board voted down the proposal last week, it was by the narrowest of margins in a 2-2 split vote. So Delnor officials are ready to move forward with the next step in the process - to go before the board again within two months to show a need in the community.
In addition to considering the labor pool and duplication of health-care services, the board vote also was based on meeting state standards regarding the minimum number of patients referred to other hospitals in the region as well as the number of heart catheterizations performed. Because there are 51 other hospitals within a 90-minute drive of Delnor offering open-heart surgeries, the state board is cautious about avoiding duplication.
But Delnor officials see it differently - they stand out, in an unhealthy way, in being one of the few hospitals that is not offering needed open-heart surgery.
While the board would never vote solely on population or market projections, Delnor has a compelling argument in noting state demographic research that reveals the number of residents who will be 65 or older in the Tri-Cities area will increase by 54 percent in the next seven years. The Delnor campus in Geneva has made tremendous advancements, clinically and technologically, in the past 15 years. So it would seem natural for that trend to continue with offering open-heart surgery.
Delnor needs only one more vote to pave the way for a treatment the state has already acknowledged Delnor clearly has the expertise and facilities to perform. We join Delnor officials in being enthusiastic about the prospects for a positive vote, while also encouraging state officials to determine if the numbers they are requesting of Delnor (that at least 200 patients were transferred from the hospital for cardiac surgery in a 12-month period) are truly relevant in an era of continuing progress in heart health care and heart disease prevention.
It's ironic, too, that a small rural community hospital could add complicated brain surgery procedures without state board approval, yet Delnor cannot offer cardiac surgery.
No hospital, including Delnor, could project that it would perform an overwhelming number of open-heart surgeries. But Delnor can clearly state it is something that central Kane County should be offered so patients and their families don't have to be transferred - sometimes in an emergency situation - when it would be easier to stay in one hospital and continue under the care of their own physicians.
Another significant point - open-heart surgery on the Delnor campus would also go a long way toward saving lives.