Firm says it’s close to deal to buy shuttered MetroSouth hospital
A Chicago health care consulting firm hopes to close by the end of the month on a deal to buy the shuttered MetroSouth Medical Center in Blue Island, with plans to eventually reopen parts of the facility.
David Smith, chief executive of Third Horizon Strategies, said he has been in talks with the hospital’s owner, Quorum Health, to acquire the hospital, which closed toward the end of September, for $1.
A Quorum representative said there is no agreement at this time with Third Horizon, and that Quorum “continues to have discussions with multiple organizations about the transition” of the hospital.
Smith, who is also co-founder of the Health Care Council of Chicago, said there are no plans to reopen MetroSouth as a fullservice hospital, but that a priority is to establish a standalone emergency department.
There are several hurdles to that taking place, however, including help from the Illinois General Assembly in passing legislation.
In June, citing multimilliondollar losses and underuse of hospital facilities, MetroSouth and Quorum sought approval from state regulators to close the hospital, which had been a fixture in downtown Blue Island for more than a century.
Initially, the timetable called for the hospital to close around the end of that year, but MetroSouth wound up operations ahead of an October vote by the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board, whose approval of the application was a moot point at the time.
According to Quorum, a handful of employees remain at the hospital, 12935 Gregory St., and Smith said he has made four or five site visits.
“It’s a great facility,” he said. He said Quorum would be “leaving a pretty extensive amount of equipment” and is maintaining the property.
Smith has formed a corporation, South Side Health Inc., to take MetroSouth and said he plans to partner with other health management organizations to restore some services.
“The initial priority is an urgent care type of platform,” which could be established fairly quickly, he said.
To open just an emergency department would require approval of legislation, something that stalled in last month’s veto session.
A measure that had been introduced by state Rep. Bob Rita, D-Blue Island, and which cleared
the House, would have provided millions of dollars in state funding to help operate an emergency room.
Smith said he has had discussions with Rita about the legislation again being considered when the General Assembly reconvenes next month.
Should that happen and the bill clear both chambers and ultimately receive the governor’s signature, the state health facilities board would also need to sign off on any proposal to establish emergency care at MetroSouth, Smith said.
Quorum had, over the summer, said numerous times it had exhausted avenues aimed at finding a buyer that would keep all, or portions, of the hospital running.
Local elected officials and first responders had hoped a new operator could keep the emergency room open. According to MetroSouth and Quorum Health, the hospital’s emergency room annually cared for more than 40,000 people.
Fire departments that took patients there are transporting them to other area hospitals, such as Little Company of Mary in Evergreen Park and Ingalls Memorial in Harvey.
Ingalls is the closest hospital to MetroSouth, at 4 1/2 miles, or about 12 minutes, 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.
MetroSouth, founded in 1905 as St. Francis Hospital, was rescued from closing in 2008 when a for-profit operator bought it, renaming it MetroSouth, and it changed ownership a few years later.
MetroSouth’s closing affected some 800 employees and local officials said that, beyond losing a major health care provider, the shutdown will have a ripple effect among Blue Island businesses that relied on the hospital for customers. The hospital includes about 700,000 square feet of space on 12 acres.