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CITY COUNCIL COMMITTEE OPENS HEARING INTO BETHANY HOSPITAL CONTROVERSY

Opponents Call for Study of Impacts Before Bethany Ends 85 Years as Full-Service Hospital for West Side’s Poor and Uninsured

FEB. 21, 2006—The growing conflict over the fate of Bethany Hospital surfaced at City Hall Tuesday, when a coalition of West Side religious leaders and community organizations urged City officials to conduct a probe into the threatened closure of key hospital services.

Appearing at a hearing held by the City Council Committee on Health, West Side activists urged Aldermen to authorize a study of the impacts that the Bethany cuts would inflict on city residents and neighboring hospitals. The hearing comes amid a grassroots outcry against Advocate Health Care’s plan to close Bethany’s obstetric and psychiatric units while sharply curtailing its emergency room care.

Two weeks ago, more than 250 West Side residents gathered in a South Lawndale church to condemn the cuts, which Advocate announced in late January and intended to make effective on March 1st. The cuts are part of a larger plan to convert Bethany into a long-term care facility. The hospital’s substance abuse program would also be eliminated under the proposed conversion.

“Under Advocate’s plan, Bethany Hospital – as we know it today – will cease to exist,” said Rev. Robin Hood of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). “There will be no OB/GYN treatment, no mental health program, no substance abuse program and no full-service emergency room. So let’s be clear: A long-term care facility is not a community hospital. And if Advocate goes ahead with this conversion, Bethany will resemble its current self in name only.”

Critics charge that the proposed cuts are particularly jarring to a West Side community plagued with some of the city’s most intractable health problems. Hospitalization rates on the West Side are twice the city average for mental illness and three times higher for substance abuse.

“Many West Side residents need precisely the kind of care that will no longer be available at Bethany Hospital,” said Pastor Steven Greer of Christian Valley Missionary Baptist Church in South Lawndale. “Many of residents in our communities are poor and uninsured – the same population that Advocate, as a non-profit hospital system, is required by law to accommodate.”

In fact, Advocate has parlayed its non-profit status into an estimated $75 million in annual tax exemptions. In exchange for those hefty subsidies, Advocate is required to provide low-cost or free health care to the indigent. But the Bethany conversion would flout that obligation by reducing needed services. It also strays from the assurances Advocate officials made to the City Council last year when they indicated that Advocate was maintaining its commitment to Bethany.

“If Advocate tries to make these cuts at Bethany, it will betray not only its commitment to the West Side, but its word to the City Council,” said Pastor Marshall Hatch of New Mount Pilgrim Baptist Church and Rainbow/PUSH.

Meanwhile, Advocate has attempted to curry favor with West Side leaders by offering a $10 million community health fund to replace the services it would eliminate at Bethany. But coalition members warned that that figure is far less than what Advocate can afford to spend on the West Side.

“One of the reasons why Bethany has struggled financially is because Advocate has been spending virtually all of its capital resources on its hospitals in white, suburban areas, while hospitals in minority areas are left to decay,” said Pastor Gregory Livingston of Mandell United Methodist Church and the West Side Health Crisis Coalition.

Livingston referred to research by the SEIU Hospital Accountability Project documenting that Advocate has spent $605 million on capital improvements at its four suburban hospitals over the past decade, compared to only $47 million at its four city facilities.

West Side Health Crisis Coalition members include: South Austin Coalition Community Council (SACCC), Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), Chicago Coalition for the Homeless (CCH), Metropolitan Alliance of Congregations (MAC) West, Rainbow/PUSH, and SEIU Hospital Accountability Project.

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