Weiss Memorial Hospital in Chicago, which had been scheduled to lose Medicare funding Saturday, ceased most of its operations Friday, officials confirmed. They also warned that without additional funding, West Suburban Medical Center in Oak Park could face the same fate.
Resilience Healthcare, which operates both facilities, plans to appeal to federal authorities to restore Medicaid and Medicare funding for Weiss so that it can reopen, CEO Dr. Manoj Prasad said during an Oak Park news conference, but the process may take a year or longer.
In the meantime, Prasad committed to continuing to operate West Suburban Medical Center — but said it, too, could face closure. “Any hospital can do that, I hate to say, with the environment that has changed,” he said.
Inpatient care at Weiss, including surgeries and the emergency room, ended Friday, but outpatient care and doctors offices will remain open. A notice on the Weiss website said the medical records department remains open, and listed a phone number for patients seeking copies of records to call.
Elderly neighborhood residents, community organizers, Weiss staffers and elected officials rallied outside the hospital Friday afternoon, carrying signs that read “Corporate greed kills” and “Saving Weiss saves lives.”
The few dozen protesters called for the hospital to remain open for two months. “People over profits, health care is a human right,” they chanted.
State Sen. Mike Simmons, state Rep. Hoan Huynh and Ald. Leni Manaa-Hoppenworth, 48th — all Democrats who represent swaths of the North Side — spoke at the rally.
Huynh emphasized the importance of the hospital to Uptown’s immigrant community, calling the neighborhood “the Ellis Island of the Midwest.”
“This hospital has been a lifeline for all of us who’ve come here, who have been low-income, who rely on Medicaid and Medicare coverage,” said Huynh, who, like Simmons, is running for Congress.
“The closing of Weiss Hospital is what happens when private equity treats poor people as disposable and when healthcare is treated as a way to make profit, instead of providing access to quality care for people,” Ald. Angela Clay, 46th, said in a statement Friday. “Weiss’ ownership ignored violation after violation that put their federal funding in jeopardy without communicating to local officials or staff.”
Clay was part of a group of local elected officials and community organizations who wrote the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services this week asking for an eight-week funding extension and a reevaluation of conditions at Weiss before the hospital’s participation in the federal program is terminated.
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The federal agency issued a public notice last month saying that the Uptown hospital would lose its ability to participate in Medicare on Aug. 9 because it was out of compliance with rules related to nursing services, physical environment and emergency services.
The notice did not elaborate on specific problems, but it came after the Illinois Department of Public Health conducted an on-site investigation at the hospital in June in response to complaints of high temperatures after air conditioning equipment at the facility failed, according to a state health department memo obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.
Weiss and West Suburban have both depended on Medicare or Medicaid to pay for 70% to 80% of their patients, though at lower reimbursement rates than private insurance, Prasad said.
Prasad defended his handling of Weiss, saying his company could not get loans to rescue the facility, but took it over when no one else came forward to buy the two hospitals out of bankruptcy in 2022.
The company was trying to fix and replace parts of the heating and cooling system and address other shortcomings identified by inspectors when the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services suddenly shut off funding, Prasad said.
Friday’s closure means many of the 800 employees of Weiss are suddenly out of work. West Suburban, which has 1,000 employees, is hiring some workers from Weiss, but not all will be able to make the commute.
Daniel Maser, a registered nurse who worked in the Weiss emergency room, said “a lot of people are panicking and scrambling to find jobs.” Maser said he was told of the closing this week by his direct supervisor.
“It’s brutal,” Maser said. “The loss of the hospital is going to make care much less accessible for many people.”
Democratic state Reps. La Shawn Ford and Camille Lilly appeared at the news conference with Prasad at West Suburban Friday and called for increased state funding to ensure that the hospital continues operating despite federal cuts. West Suburban serves mostly Black and low-income patients from Chicago’s West Side.
“Health care’s a right, and we need to work collectively to make sure everyone has access,” Lilly said.
Weiss patients were evacuated to West Suburban and other hospitals June 18 after the air conditioning at Weiss failed. West Suburban had issues maintaining its own air conditioning with the influx of patients, Prasad said, but those issues have been addressed.
Weiss, a 76-year-old facility, hadn’t been maintained and had been losing more than $30 million annually for several years when Resilience took it over, Prasad said. The two hospitals together had an $81 million debt to vendors.
Although Resilience had to cut out frills and certain services at Weiss, Prasad said, the hospital kept meeting its payroll. But the hospital “hit a wall” in the spring when its electronic medical record system could only support about one-third of its bill collections.
By cutting wasteful spending, Weiss upset a lot of people, Prasad said, including an employee who was passed over for a promotion and called authorities to file a complaint about conditions at the facility, which triggered state inspection violations.
The violations were addressed — but then Weiss got notice of termination of federal funding.
In July, West Suburban had to shut down its mother-baby unit, Prasad said, because it didn’t have enough staff to cover the required seven nurses per shift. The hospital is now recruiting for another model that will only require three nurses per shift, he added.
West Suburban also recently signed an agreement to share some of its behavioral health patients with another hospital.
“So the intent is to continue and make it work with whatever resources we have,” Prasad said.