First responders grapple with MetroSouth closure

Blue Island officials eye redevelopment potential for former hospital space in heart of the city

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 Metro South 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 stillupin the air, with Blue Island’s mayor urging approval of a deal that would give the city control of the property at 12935Gregory 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 ChiefDan Reda said Friday.

Several area fire chiefs and representatives fromhospitals including IngallsMemorial 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.

“There have not been any major new problems, but there are concernsmoving forward and we are monitoring it closely,” he said.

Welsh is also president of Mutual Aid Box Alarm System Division 24, comprised 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 meetingwas held at the division’s headquarters in Homewood.

Local fire departments that would have taken patients by ambulance toMetroSouth are seeing longer travel times, Welsh said Friday.

“We’re all adjusting to it right now,” he said.

The closest nearby hospital toMetroSouth is Ingalls, which is 4 1/2 miles, or about 12 minutes fromMetroSouth, followed by Little Company ofMary, which is a bitmore 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 weather on the horizon and the potential for hazardous road conditions, that could contribute to even longer periods when ambulances are out of service.

Property has ‘real potential’

Sara Brown, executive director Blue Island Chamber of Commerce, said the loss of the hospital’s more than 800 jobs will impact 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.

“How do we repurpose that property?” she said. “It could have real potential.

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.

“It’s going to affect everybody,” she said of the hospital’s closing. “I think it’s a great building and I’m praying somebody will come in and reopen it.”

“Everybody in Blue Island isworkinghard” 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.

Following the state board’s vote Tuesday, Quorum said it would begin “final wind down processes” at the hospital and would 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 continue to 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 billwas nearly $1.3 million, but not all of thatwent to Blue Island.

In a letter posted at the city’s website after the state board’s vote, Blue Island MayorDomingoVargas said it is in the “community’s interest to take control of the present facility in order to find the right provider.”

“We need to convince all of the city’s and community’s stakeholders that the hospital’s future is our main priority,” Vargas wrote.

Local officials had hoped that, should the hospital close, a new operator might at least keep a standalone emergencydepartmentrunning, 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.

Those options don’t include buying and operating the hospital, according to Teitelbaum, but Sinai is open “to continued dialogue to develop realistic alternatives, and to bring other community health care partners into those discussions.”

Sinai is grappling with its own financial issues, and said recently itwould eliminatemore than half the beds at itsHoly CrossHospital in Chicago’s Chicago Lawn community and temporarily suspendOB-GYNcare.

While unrelated to MetroSouth’s closing, Cook County Health is opening a medical center in downtown Blue Island that is described as being just short of a full-service hospital, with primary care services, obstetrics and dental care.

The county is relocating services that had been offered at the Oak Forest Health Center, at Cicero Avenue and 159th Street, and the Blue Island facility is located in the four-story, 50,000- square-foot Masonic Temple building, 12757 S. WesternAve.

In seeking approval to close MetroSouth, Quorum cited multimillion- dollar losses and underuse of hospital facilities.

The hospital was founded in 1905 as St. Francis Hospital. It was rescued fromclosing in 2008whena for-profit operator bought it, renaming itMetroSouth.