In a surprise move, the head of Provena Mercy Center has been dismissed in the wake of a year of significant financial losses at the Aurora hospital.
After 20 months as president and chief executive officer, Mary Sheahen abruptly left her position last week, officials disclosed Monday.
“In order to develop new leadership for Provena Mercy Center, Mary Sheahen’s tenure as president and chief executive officer ended (Wednesday),” according to a statement issued by Mercy Center’s parent company, Frankfort-based Provena Health System.
“Health care is an extremely challenging industry and despite Ms. Sheahen’s substantial abilities, senior management felt a different set of skills would be more appropriate for Provena Mercy Center at this time,” the statement read.
Officials there would not comment further.
The move came as a surprise to Sheahen, 51, who has headed the hospital since June 1998.
“You are never prepared for that,” said Sheahen, who was informed by Jack Barto, president of Provena Hospitals, a week ago that she would be let go immediately. “When someone says those words to you, `We’re going to make a change,’ it’s like a kick in a gut.”
Sheahen said she believes she was fired because of the hospital’s recent financial woes.
“Mercy had some financial problems last year for a lot of reasons, and the CEO takes the fall,” she said.
Though hospital officials said last year’s figures are not yet available, Sheahen said she believes the hospital took its hardest hit in many years.
“Last year was the worst in a long time. There are a lot of hospitals who are losing money these days. It’s happening everywhere. Bottom lines are just falling out,” she said. “Sometimes you can’t get your costs low enough.”
Industry experts said Provena Health System still is dealing with myriad issues in managing its seven hospitals after a merger of three Catholic health-care firms created the company two years ago.
Many health-care providers have said state and federal budget cuts in recent years could endanger inner-city hospitals such as Mercy Center.
Hospital administrators have said Mercy could lose as much as $12 million over five years from the federal budget cuts divvied out in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997.
Additionally, in the last two years, Mercy Center has written off $5.6 million in charity care and an estimated $9 million more in bad debt, Sheahen reported last fall at a meeting of hospital staff and community leaders, urging them to fight future budget cuts.
Sheahen also has been a vocal opponent of a proposed $92.3 million specialty heart hospital planned by Edward Hospital in Naperville, which she said will threaten Mercy Center’s existing cardiac program. Cardiac care is often seen as one of a hospital’s most lucrative areas.
She represented Mercy Center in a coalition of seven west suburban hospitals that have joined forces to fight the heart hospital.
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Sheahen, who has worked in the health-care industry for 32 years, came to the Aurora medical center in April 1997 as senior vice president of operations and chief operating officer.
Before her tenure at Mercy Center, she worked at Good Samaritan Hospital in Downers Grove, first as a registered nurse and later as vice president of patient care services and operations.
At Mercy Center, she developed a program with Mutual Ground, a women’s and children’s shelter in Aurora for victims of domestic abuse that provided health services by one of the hospital’s nurse midwives. It was the first program in Illinois to offer on-site health care at a shelter, she said.
Barto will serve as the interim head of Mercy Center until a permanent replacement is named, officials said.