Workers cope with hospital closure
Blue Island officials eye redevelopment
While, as expected, ambulance travel times have increased, area first responders say so far there have been no serious issues following the closing of Blue Island’s MetroSouth Medical Center.
The hospital last month had suspended services, including the emergency department, ahead of a vote last Tuesday by the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board approving the hospital’s owner, Quorum Health, request to shut the hospital, which has been a fixture in Blue Island for more than a century.
What might become of the 700,000-square-foot facility, which sits on 12 acres in the heart of the city, is still up in the air at this point, with Blue Island’s mayor urging approval of a deal that would give the city control of the property at 12935 Gregory St.
Local fire chiefs had been preparing since this summer for the hospital’s possible closing, particularly in Blue Island.
“Definitely our (ambulance) transport times are up, but nothing too out of the ordinary,” fire Chief Dan Reda said Friday.
Several area fire chiefs and representatives from hospitals including Ingalls Memorial in Harvey and Evergreen Park’s Little Company of Mary met Thursday to assess emergency response operations in a post-MetroSouth environment, according to Kevin Welsh, Glenwood’s fire chief. Welsh is also president of Mutual Aid Box Alarm System Division 24, composed of 20 south suburban fire departments that share resources to respond to major emergencies beyond the scope of a single fire department and provide training to member departments. The meeting was held at the division’s headquarters in Homewood.
Local fire departments that would have taken patients by ambulance to MetroSouth are seeing longer travel times, Welsh said Friday. The closest nearby hospital to MetroSouth is Ingalls, which is 4 1⁄2 miles, or about 12 minutes from MetroSouth, followed by Little Company of Mary, which is a bit more than 5 miles away, or 17 minutes, according to the health facilities board.
Area fire chiefs and other first responders, however, have said those travel time estimates are based on ideal traffic conditions and don’t take into account the many freight railroad tracks that crisscross the area.
Reda said that now with MetroSouth not an option for that city’s ambulances, Ingalls, Little Company and Chicago’s Roseland Community Hospital are the Blue Island department’s go-to hospitals.
When MetroSouth was open “we were five minutes away and everything was simple,” he said.
Along with the longer transport times, Reda said that is going to increase wear and tear on city ambulances. Also, Welsh and Reda said, with winter on the horizon and the potential for hazardous road conditions, that could contribute to even longer periods when ambulances are out of service.
Sara Brown, executive director Blue Island Chamber of Commerce, said the loss of the hospital’s more than 800 jobs will affect businesses in that city, and that the chamber stands ready as “a partner to any and all entities” that might be working on a possible redevelopment of the site.
De Mar’s Coffee Shop, 12941 S. Western Ave., just west of the hospital, would often see hospital employees or patients’ families stop in for a bite, or fill large carryout orders for hospital staff, according to owner Christine Iliopoulos.
“Everybody in Blue Island is working hard” to find a new use for the property, Iliopoulos said.
Quorum said it is still open to a deal it proposed some weeks ago under which it would essentially hand over the hospital to Blue Island and throw in an initial payment of $2 million to maintain the property while the city looks for a new owner.
After the state board’s vote Tuesday, Quorum said it would begin “final winddown processes” at the hospital and work with local officials “in hopes of finding a health care-related use for the facility.”
The tentative agreement also allows Blue Island to keep $500,000 in tax increment financing money that would have gone to Quorum, which said it would pay property taxes to the city through at least 2021.
According to Cook County records, for tax year 2018 and paid this year, the hospital’s tax bill was nearly $1.3 million, but not all of that went to Blue Island.
In a letter posted at the city’s website after the state board’s vote, Blue Island Mayor Domingo Vargas said it is in the “community’s interest to take control of the present facility in order to find the right provider.”
Local officials had hoped that, should the hospital close, a new operator might at least keep a standalone emergency department running, and the mayor said pressure needed to be applied to state legislators “to draft and pass legislation during this (upcoming fall veto session) allowing free standing emergency rooms” in the state.
Nonprofit hospital operator Sinai Health System said it has been involved since early September in discussions with area elected officials about MetroSouth’s potential closure, with a goal of “identifying a variety of options that might keep needed (healthcare) services in the community,” according to a statement from Sinai president and chief executive Karen Teitelbaum.