MetroSouth Medical Center officials announced Friday that they had stopped accepting new patients and temporarily suspended general emergency and obstetrics emergency departments at the Blue Island facility.
The decision, which comes three days after a state board pushed back a vote on the hospital’s closure until next month, comes as the hospital’s independent general surgery group submitted its resignation, effective Friday, hospital officials said in a statement on MetroSouth’s website.
“As a result of that decision, the hospital will no longer have physician surgical coverage for emergent patients or women in labor requiring surgery, forcing the hospital to transfer patients to other facilities,” according to MetroSouth officials, who said the facility was in the process of contacting all expectant mothers who were scheduled to deliver after Friday.
By temporarily suspending these services, hospital officials said they would be better able to dedicate their remaining resources to patients currently in the hospital.
State Rep. Bob Rita, D-Blue Island, called MetroSouth’s announcement a “complete surprise” and said its abrupt timing on Friday evening just days after the board delayed its vote on the hospital’s closure made it appear to be a “calculated move to shut the hospital down without shutting it down.”
“They didn’t get the result from the (Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board) they thought they would get, so this was option B to get what they want,” Rita said. “When you’re not accepting patients and you’re moving patients out, that means you shut down. If there’s no patients in the hospital, how is this a hospital in operation?”
He said that by ceasing to accept new patients and suspending its emergency departments without first receiving approval of the state board, the hospital had failed to follow the proper processes and should be held accountable.
“If this isn’t criminal, it should be criminal,” Rita said, adding that he believed the hospital’s operators had an obligation to the community and its employees to continue offering health care services absent approval from the health facilities planning board to cease operations.
MetroSouth officials said Rita’s comments were without merit and that the hospital had complied with all state requirements in temporarily suspending some services.
“The first priority and obligation for any hospital is safe patient care,” a company spokeswoman said in a statement. “No hospital can responsibly operate an emergency department and admit patients without general surgery resources, something MetroSouth now lacks due to the decisions and actions by its independent surgery physician group.”
Anne Igoe, vice president of the Health Systems Division at SEIU Healthcare Illinois Indiana, the union that represents some of MetroSouth’s workers, called the hospital’s actions “outrageous,” in light of the state board’s recent decision to delay its vote on closure.
“For this for-profit corporation to suspend its operations shows such brazen contempt for the Review Board’s authority and is an utter insult to patients, the Blue Island community, and to our workers,” Igoe said in a statement.
The union’s statement accused owners Quorum Health, which acquired the hospital in early 2012, of manufacturing its own staffing crisis by failing to extend physicians’ contracts and “making clear that workers had little to no future at the hospital.”
Blue Island Mayor Domingo Vargas said Saturday that the timing of MetroSouth’s announcement was “shocking,” but that there had long been concern that such a move to suspend services might be coming.
With the hospital’s general emergency department suspended, Vargas said the city’s first responders were taking patients who ordinarily would have gone to MetroSouth to other area hospitals for treatment.
Both he and Rita said they were exploring various options for responding to MetroSouth’s announcement, but that at this point they weren’t entirely sure how they would proceed.
Vargas also said he had made sure Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s office was aware of the hospital’s announcement and was hoping to set up a meeting with the governor to discuss the matter.
SEIU has called on the Attorney General and the Pritzker administration to “use any and all legal action” to keep MetroSouth open and ensure it continues to provide emergency room care.
In addition to the resignation Friday of MetroSouth’s general surgery group, the hospital said in its statement that the physician groups that provide oncology and emergency services also submitted notices that they would cease all services for the hospital later this month.
Nearly 15% of MetroSouth’s 800 employees have left since the June 11 announcement that the hospital would close if no buyer could be found and its cardiac catheterization lab had already been forced to suspend operations last month due to understaffing, according to the company’s statement.
MetroSouth also filed a lawsuit late Friday in Cook County Circuit Court seeking immediate action from the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board on its application to discontinue operations at the hospital, a Quorum Health spokeswoman said.
The state board on Tuesday delayed a vote that could close the hospital, citing a lawsuit filed by a company that wants to buy MetroSouth as a factor in its decision, and is now expected to take up the matter at its Oct. 22 meeting.
MetroSouth’s suit contends that by deferring its vote on the company’s application to cease operations, the state board had violated its own governing statute, which states that an exemption application “shall be approved when information required by the Board by rule is submitted,” as has allegedly occurred in this case, the hospital said in a statement.
“We are at a critical juncture at MetroSouth Medical Center that could negatively impact the hospital’s ability to engage in an orderly wind down of operations,” CEO John Walsh said in a statement Saturday. “The actions taken by the board are based on what appears to be a frivolous and meritless lawsuit designed to game the board’s processes to delay action on the application. We are respectfully requesting the board comply with its own governing statute and act immediately on the exemption application.”
