Cook County Health will pause its plans to build a new Provident Hospital on the South Side.
Hill Hammock, chair of the health system’s board, sent a memo to other health system officials the plans to build a new hospital would be paused until the search for a new CEO was finished, Cook County Commissioner Larry Suffredin said.
The Board of Cook County Health voted in November to oust Dr. John Jay Shannon, the CEO of the county’s health arm.
All 10 members present at that meeting voted not to renew Shannon’s contract, which expired Dec. 31.
The proposed new hospital is to include 42 medical and surgical beds, six beds in the intensive care unit, eight operating rooms and two procedure rooms, diagnostic radiology and cardiovascular imagery, an 18-bay emergency department and 70 outpatient exam rooms.
Suffredin said the pause will give commissioners and the health system time to figure out the impact of a planned merger of four hospitals on the city’s South Side.
The decision to postpone the Provident project was first reported by WBEZ.
