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West Side Pastors, Residents
March on Bethany Hospital Sunday
Religious Leaders Hold Mass Emergency Prayer to Keep
Advocate Bethany Hospital Open
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April 12, 2006—Seeking to dramatize the plight of West Side
residents threatened by the loss of Advocate
Bethany
Hospital services, a coalition of religious leaders led a
mass prayer session Sunday outside the doors of the
facility’s recently shuttered emergency room.
Hundreds of community residents attended the event, billed
as an “Emergency Prayer,” to underscore the dire predicament
facing the West Side if Advocate Health Care proceeds with
plans to eliminate Bethany’s OB/GYN, mental health and
substance abuse units – on top of its recent closure of
major emergency room care.
The demonstration came as the controversial Bethany plan
faces a spate of new scrutiny this week. On Monday, Cook
County Commissioner Roberto Maldonado will conduct a public
hearing on Advocate’s cuts at Bethany. On Tuesday, members
of the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board – the
agency with authority over the Bethany cuts – will disclose
its review of Advocate’s spending practices in the
inner-city.
In November, the IHFPB required Advocate to demonstrate that
it would maintain its funding commitment to the West Side as
a condition for approving the company’s $239 million
expansion of Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge. But as
the Board meets Tuesday in Chicago (9 AM, 350 N. Orleans) to
consider Advocate’s response, the company has already asked
regulators to approve a major reduction in services at
Bethany.
Such inconsistencies are part of Advocate’s continuing
pattern of misrepresentations regarding Bethany, according
to a letter that an alliance of West Side clergy sent last
week to the church officials who sit on Advocate’s board.
“Last year, we challenged executives of Advocate to explain
why they were not seeking investments at Bethany on the same
scale as they were making in suburban hospitals,” wrote the
pastors, known as Clergy Committed to Save Bethany, Save Our
Community. “We were repeatedly told that Advocate remains
committed to Bethany and to our community. We were told that
Advocate would keep the doors of Bethany open to the
community, despite financial losses.”
As a non-profit, religiously affiliated hospital network,
Advocate collects more than $75 million annually in tax
exemptions. In exchange, it is required to provide community
benefits such as low-cost or free healthcare to the indigent
and uninsured – two populations that are highly prevalent in
the West Side neighborhoods Bethany serves. In fact,
hospitalization rates on the West Side are twice the city
average for mental illness and three times higher for
substance abuse. In some area neighborhoods, the mortality
rate from assault averaged 192% higher than the city-wide
average.
Against this backdrop, critics claim that the Bethany cuts
buck Advocate’s public obligations to serve distressed
communities. |
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Hospital Accountability Project, Service Employees International Union
40 N. Wells, Suite 300 Chicago, IL 60606
(312) 541-9566
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