* WBEZ…

A new report underscores just how much small hospitals on Chicago’s South and West sides struggle financially, and what can be done to prevent them from closing.

These small so-called “safety net” hospitals tend to be staples in their communities. They typically treat low-income and elderly Black and Latino patients, and often don’t have enough money flowing in to make ends meet.

A new study commissioned by the Health Care Council of Chicago estimates that by 2024, a dozen of these hospitals could lose at least $1.8 billion combined. And that doesn’t even account for money hospitals lost during the COVID-19 pandemic, as they suspended money-generating surgeries and shifted patients to video and phone visits to help slow the spread of the coronavirus.

“We cannot do this for another three or four years and expect that we are not going to see the threat of more hospital closures, more job loss, while health does not get better,” said David Smith, CEO of Third Horizon Strategies and lead author of the paper. “This does not have to be our future.”

The report comes as one safety net, Mercy Hospital in Bronzeville on the Near South Side, recently filed for bankruptcy protection and has been preparing to close this spring.

The report is here.

* House Speaker Chris Welch was asked by Greg Hinz the other day what issue was personally important to him to address this session and he talked about hospital closures…

Welch: You and I have talked a number of times, because you personally witnessed my fight to save Westlake Hospital out here in my area, and to watch and see what’s going on with Mercy Hospital. I was warning people back then that this was just the tip of the iceberg. We really need to do something about hospitals closing, particularly in black and brown communities. The disparities already are so wide, you can drive a Mack truck through them. They’re only going to grow if we continue to allow hospitals to close in poor communities. How does a hospital like Mercy post 6$05 million profits in a quarter and then file bankruptcy? It’s crazy. Allowing these hospitals to close is something that we need to take a good long look at and protect communities like the one that I serve and like the one that Rep. Lamont Robinson serves out on the South Side where now Mercy Hospital is threatening to close his doors. This is something that I really want to take a look at. And we can address it this session that would be great.

Hinz: Is the problem that there was not adequate public help for these facilities to keep them open or is the problem that people who operate some of these hospitals are not acting in the public interest, or is it both?

Welch: I think there’s a combination. I certainly think government can do do better. As I told you earlier, our budget is a moral document. I think on the federal level on the state level, we can probably do more to help these these hospital systems. But I certainly think that the hospital industry has changed. Healthcare shouldn’t be a for-profit industry. Unfortunately, it’s become a for-profit industry. And it should be about care and compassionate, compassion, and healing. And unfortunately now it’s about dollars and cents. That’s really unfortunate. And to leave poor communities with gaping holes for access to healthcare has been the byproduct of the healthcare industry becoming a for-profit industry. We have to correct that. That’s a serious issue that has to be corrected.

Hinz: There’s already laws on the books as you know that says before you close a hospital facility have to go to a board, and the board has to sign off on it and the board usually goes along that way. What more should the state be doing?

Welch: I think we have to give that board some more teeth to the law. Because right now it’s more like a ratification a check the box type of process. You talk about an entire community, heartbreaking. That process that we went through at Westlake Hospital was demoralizing and heartbreaking. And people really loved that community hospital. It provided care to folks who otherwise otherwise aren’t getting it. There’s a hole now that they’re not getting that care. And so, watching, I was in Bolingbrook when the board met. And you know, it was more like checking the box because there was really nothing they can do other than grant the application. […] The last thing I want to see is another hospital closing in a low income community. I want to see them opening up, not closing.