CHICAGO — A top doctor at Loretto Hospital has resigned amid ongoing controversy over connected people receiving vaccinations from the West Side provider.
The hospital’s board on Wednesday night announced the resignation of Dr. Anosh Ahmed, the chief operating officer and chief financial officer.
“On behalf of the Board of Trustees, I want to thank Dr. Ahmed for his contributions to the Loretto Hospital community and we wish him the best in his future endeavors,” Edward M. Hogan, the hospital board chairman, said in a statement.
Ahmed could not be reached for comment.
The move follows an uproar over the hospital having improperly administered vaccine doses. The city of Chicago moved to withhold first doses of coronavirus vaccines from the facility while it conducts a review to ensure it is complying with distribution rules.
Last week, Loretto acknowledged improperly vaccinating workers at Trump Tower downtown while also saying it improperly gave shots to Cook County judges. The stories, first reported by Block Club Chicago and WBEZ, have drawn negative attention to the hospital, which has said it was mistaken about the rules.
Ahmed owns a condo in Trump Tower, public records show. Block Club also reported that a luxury watch shop in the Gold Coast frequented by Ahmed improperly received vaccines.
On Friday, Loretto CEO George Miller and Ahmed were reprimanded “for their roles in mistakes” of judgment, the hospital board said. The hospital did not give details about how the two were reprimanded, however.
Before the vaccine scandal, Ahmed had been credited with keeping Loretto’s doors open amid the pandemic, as hospitals everywhere grappled with financial difficulties caused in large part by the lack of elective procedures and people not seeking medical care.
With his hospital 39% over budget last spring, Ahmed told The Chicago Tribune he spent many sleepless nights worrying about whether the community hospital would be fully reimbursed for its work. He said Loretto was using more medicine, more supplies and more personnel than usual to fight the virus, which hit the Austin neighborhood far harder than wealthier areas of the city.
”The hospital has been here for 90 years,” Ahmed said. “It has seen great financial times and some really bad ones, but the community has always needed us. The hospital has to be here … and as long as we get the proper support from the government and the insurance companies, we will survive.”
Democratic state Rep. La Shawn Ford announced his resignation from the hospital board this week.
In a statement, Loretto noted it has done more than 23,000 COVID-19 tests and provided more than 16,000 vaccination shots at the hospital.
The hospital was chosen by the city as the first vaccination site in Chicago and earlier this month hosted Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker as he signed a health care bill into law.
