Officials at a Melrose Park hospital have moved forward with plans to shut down the facility.
Services are being suspended at Westlake Hospital, the hospital’s owner, Pipeline Health, announced in a press release Tuesday. Pipeline also on Tuesday gave employees a 60-day notice of closure, as required by state and federal law.
The service suspension, according to the news release, was due to “concerns about its ability to continue maintaining a safe environment for patient care due primarily to declining staff rates.” According to Pipeline, inpatient stays have been declining, and the hospital has been losing nearly $2 million a month. The suspension was described as “temporary” in the news release, but only because the application to close the facility is still pending with the state, according to Dennis Culloton, a Pipeline spokesman.
A hearing on that application is scheduled for April 30 before the state Health Facilities and Services Review Board, Culloton said.
Pipeline had announced its plans to close the facility in February, just weeks after buying it. The facility, at 1225 W. Lake St., has operated in the near west suburb since 1927.
When the closing was announced, it had 800 employees. Since then, however, “hospital staffing rates have continued to fall at a concerning rate,” according to the Pipeline statement.
“This temporary suspension is being done in the interest of patient safety and patient care,” Culloton said. “In certain cases, medical staff are not reporting for duty. The staffing for critical roles in Westlake’s emergency room, intensive care has been covered by registered nurses from outside agencies who are unfamiliar with the hospital procedures.”
The remaining staff has been forced to work “unacceptably” long shifts to cover its staffing woes, Culloton said, but couldn’t say for sure how many people Westlake employs at the moment.
On Tuesday, the hospital, licensed for 225 beds, had 73 inpatients.
“We are working on a plan of transition that puts patient safety and patient care first,” Culloton said. “Some will be discharged, naturally, some may seek to transfer, and some who are having elective procedures or future surgeries scheduled will have it done at other hospitals.”
Culloton said patients are being offered the opportunity to transfer to West Suburban Medical Center in Oak Park. Pipeline, a private company based in California, purchased that hospital, as well as Weiss Hospital in Uptown, at the same time it purchased Westlake.
“Pipeline has lied to the community from day one,” State Rep. Kathleen Willis, D-Ill., said. “They have gone and basically cannibalized the hospital because of the work we are trying to do.”
Willis accuses Pipeline Health of manufacturing its own staffing crisis by laying people off and not hiring any replacements.
“They have done everything in their power to allow this situation to fester and get worse,” she said.
“I don’t buy the case people are leaving and not going to work,” Willis said. “This is a working-class community … they need these jobs, they’re working paycheck to paycheck, they’re not just going to not show up for work.”
Pipeline’s decision also drew the ire of U.S. Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, D-Ill.; the hospital is in his 4th Congressional District.
“Westlake Hospital is a critical asset for Melrose Park and the surrounding communities in Chicago,” Garcia was quoted as saying in a statement issued by his office. “The closure of the hospital would harm people in my community who are currently being treated by doctors in that facility and who don’t have other options for their health care.”
Willis and other state lawmakers, who have objected to the closing, are backing a bill in the Illinois House of Representatives. H.B. 123 would give the governor the power to reverse any decision by the Health Facilities and Services Review Board on a hospital closing. It also would suspend any application to close a hospital until pending lawsuits over the closing are resolved. The village of Melrose Park has sued over the closure; Pipeline has filed a motion seeking to have that lawsuit dismissed.
State representatives will vote on the bill Wednesday and, if approved, will then head to the Illinois Senate.
When the closing was announced, no timeline was offered. Melrose Park officials at the time denounced the move in a news release.
“Less than one month after Pipeline promised to keep Westlake open and vocalized the hospital’s tremendous importance as one of the only safety net hospitals in our region, they have announced that they are closing the doors,” Melrose Park Mayor Ron Serpico said in the statement.
Tenet Healthcare sold its last three Chicago-area hospitals in January to Pipeline Health and TWG Partners, a health care investment firm founded by Eric Whitaker in 2011.
Whitaker, a close friend of former President Barack Obama, served as director of Illinois Department of Public Health and executive vice president and associate dean at the University of Chicago Medicine.
“[T]he entire time we have been led to believe that they were going to invest in Westlake, not close it.” State Rep. and Westlake Hospital trustee Emanuel Chris Welch said in the statement when the closing was announced.
“Tenant, Pipeline Health and Whitaker deceived the State of Illinois, the Village of Melrose Park and surrounding community members,” Welch said. “I will oppose this measure for the sake of our community. I will ask my fellow legislators to stand with me in opposition as well.”
Tenet CEO Ron Rittenmeyer said at the time that Tenet was “pleased” to sell and was confident the hospitals would have a “bright future.”
Manny Ramos is a corps member in Report for America, a not-for-profit journalism program that aims to bolster Sun-Times coverage of issues affecting Chicago’s South and West sides.
Contributing: David Struett
