St. Sen. Sue Rezin wants to know what went wrong at St. Margaret’s Health so employees and patients got barely a week’s notice that the Peru hospital is closing. The hospital’s letter to employees says work is being done to get state government to allow the hospital to stay open without an emergency room. For now, SMP Health says with the emergency room doctors’ contractor pulling out, the hospital has to close.
Rezin was surprised to find out Friday. She says Gov. Pritzker signed a bill into law providing for special status to let the hospital keep running under new rules for rural hospitals. Rezin says St. Margaret’s Health was waiting only for the Illinois Department of Public Health to agree too.
Rezin says besides patients having to drive long distances to get care at other places, a hospital closure costs a lot of jobs. She and other lawmakers from the area plan a Zoom call with hospital officials today. Rezin says St. Rep. Lance Yednock, St. Rep. Dennis Tipsword, and St. Sen. Win Stoller will participate.
A letter to employees on Friday said St. Margaret’s Health will close at 7am this Saturday, January 28. Ambulance services are being told to take patients to St. Margaret’s Spring Valley starting Thursday. Patients with appointments at Peru will be rescheduled for dates and times in Spring Valley, except for maternity care. Women who are pregnant or in labor will be sent to other hospital systems altogether.
The letter said the contractor who provides emergency room doctors is terminating the contract. It says SMP Health cannot afford to provide E.R. doctors.
Rezin says a lot of “political capital” went into passing the bill that should have kept the hospital open. She says she and St. Rep. Yednock worked with numerous others they have relationships with in the legislature to persuade them to support the bill, even though it was specific to only one hospital and those other lawmakers want the same support for their districts.
Rezin told WCMY this morning, she doesn’t know any more about the hospital closure than what has been reported in the news media. Yednock said something similar. He said he has many questions and will refrain from saying more until after the meeting with the hospital officials.