Oak Forest Hospital to cut services
A battered charity hospital in Chicago's southern suburbs will remain open for now, although with radical cuts to services, while its leaders keep seeking a state board's permission to close the facility, Cook County officials announced Wednesday.
Only about a dozen patients will remain at Oak Forest Hospital, county officials said. Surgeries were halted last month. The emergency room will remain open, but the intensive care unit and the acute rehabilitation department will close.
The county wants to close the hospital, but a state board last month denied that request. County Board President Toni Preckwinkle said Wednesday the county health system's leaders could have avoided some of the community protests of the planned closure if they'd done a better job informing the public about plans to convert the hospital into a regional outpatient center.
"I've always said that as a public official you have two key responsibilities - to do the right thing and to explain to people why what you're doing is the right thing," Preckwinkle said in a statement. "We need to do a better job" of reaching out to the public, she said.
County officials said the cost of continuing inpatient care at the hospital would be nearly $2 million a month.
Preckwinkle said the health system will submit a new proposal to the state board. It will still seek the hospital's closure but will include an all-hours urgent care center at the Oak Forest campus in response to community concerns. She said she is forming an advisory council on health care in the south suburbs to increase community engagement.
A citizens group responded that it's encouraged by the decision to include an all-hours urgent care center in the revised, long-term plans for the Oak Forest Hospital campus.
Lynda DeLaforgue, co-director of Citizen Action Illinois, said Wednesday she's hopeful citizens can play a larger role as the county revisits its plan for converting the hospital into a regional outpatient center.
"It is our hope that we can work together in true partnership and collaboration with the county and its public health system," DeLaforgue said.