In the wake of West Suburban Hospital being locked down by the Oak Park building officials last week after its last working elevator failed, several local elected officials voiced their concerns regarding the hospital’s current management and the impact of private ownership of essential medical resources on average people.
Oak Park firefighters were seen at the facility June 11 carrying a dialysis clinic’s patients down multiple flights of stairs when the elevator failed.
PCC Wellness in Oak Park has — or had — three clinics in the now shuttered West Sub professional building. Communications Director Melissa Chrisfield said the sudden closure had PCC staff scrambling to find alternatives for their patients on just hours notice.
“On Thursday we got a call that the elevators went down again,” Chrisfield told a gathering at the Democratic Party of Oak Park (DPOP) on Saturday. “We spent Thursday and Friday re-routing all of our patients to other clinics, because you cannot have people on the sixth and seventh floor if there’s no working elevator and it’s not handicap accessible.
Three Oak Park area elected officials — 1st District Cook County Commissioner Tara Stamps, 78th District State Rep. Camille Lilly and 8th District State Rep. La Shawn K. Ford, say state officials, have learned a hard lesson through the ongoing West Sub debacle.
Speaking at the DPOP gathering Saturday, Stamps called the behavior of West Sub CEO Manoj Prasad “inhumane.” She said when she and others met with Prasad last year to discuss his decision to close West Sub’s obstetrics department, his explanation “was gibberish …” She added, “it’s my understanding he’s getting away with it.”
Lilly was equally blunt in her assessment of Prasad’s professional qualifications, saying, “he did not know how to run a hospital.”
In addition to her elected position in Springfield, Lilly has long served as an administrator at Loretto Hospital in Austin.
Lilly said the problems at West Sub run deeper than managerial incompetence and debt. She said the problems with critically important medical providers being taken over by private for-profit entities has its roots in 2015 state legislation crafted by the Illinois Hospital Association that “reduced our vetting of community hospitals throughout the state.”
“They wanted to get vacant hospitals up and running,” Lilly said. There were numerous steps in the vetting process, she said, and those steps “were relaxed.”
“They thought they were doing something good to get healthcare available, but it has not turned out to be a good decision.”
Stamps said the problems stem from the difference in motivations between for profit and non-profit hospitals.
“The danger that faces all of us is when you begin to privatize the (services) that the people need and rely on,” Stamps said. Privately owned hospitals, she said, exist to provide medical services, but they are also expected to make money for their owners.
“Whether we’re talking about hospitals or schools, the moment that stops being financially (viable) to whoever owns it, then they can get out of the game,” Stamps said.
Ford said he believed “private hospitals should be treated the same in terms of regulation as public “safety net” hospitals, but added, “The problem is, you can’t force them to provide more money. You can’t take (over) a private business.”
“I think there will be … a process (put) in place to monitor the health of the hospital,” Ford said. “We didn’t have enough oversight on the hospital. (Prasad) closed the hospital in one day. That’s unacceptable.”
“There’s no doubt that state has learned a lesson with Dr. Prasad’s ability to run rampant and be irresponsible with state and federal funds,” Ford said Monday. He shared two pages of talking points he said Prasad handed him prior to a March press conference. In it Prasad outlined the hospital’s dire straits, but blamed everyone but himself, and repeatedly called for more money from the state.
Among the things Prasad wanted Ford to say were, “I have spoken with Dr. Prasad and reviewed the facts. This is a hospital that has been doing the right thing under impossible conditions. They need a bridge, not a takeover.”
Ford called Prasad’s talking points, to use a more polite term, “nonsense.” He said he believed changes will be coming to how oversight is conducted on hospitals.
“What has happened in the state when it comes to community hospitals is a lack of commitment to access to healthcare for all people,” Lilly said. “The state is slowly picking up on that understanding.”
Ironically, the complete closure of West Sub comes just days after a bill passed the Illinois State Legislature that is designed to tighten up regulatory oversight of the process of privately owned hospitals changing ownership and strengthen transparency requirements.