Last week, Growing Community Media received a video reportedly from inside West Suburban Medical Center’s campus in River Forest that showed results of flooding which brought down portions of ceilings in hallways and offices.
On July 28, River Forest Village Administrator Matt Walsh told Growing Community Media that a tenant inside Building C on the River Forest campus on Lake Street reported that there was water damage as a part of contracted work.
After village representatives met with property management personnel, Walsh confirmed on July 31 that the water damage was a result of a malfunctioning HVAC unit, which leaked water that affected two floors of Building C. Walsh said there was no structural damage, and much of the destruction occurred in a part of the building that was mostly unoccupied.
“After viewing the damage, the village notified property management that permits would need to be pulled for the repair work,” Walsh said in an email. He added that most of the repairs will fix walls that were affected by the water damage.
While hospital officials address the malfunctioning HVAC, Walsh said West Sub officials are using temporary air conditioning in Building A and Building C while working toward a more permanent solution. He added that a few tenants from Building A have been temporarily relocated to other buildings on the campus.
“The village continues to monitor the conditions at the Medical Center and is motivating West Suburban to find permanent solutions as quickly as possible,” Walsh said.
West Suburban’s River Forest campus has also had issues in the past with its elevators which, before February, hadn’t passed inspection in a year.
West Sub’s River Forest HVAC issues follow similar air conditioning problems at the hospital’s Oak Park campus and sister institution, Weiss Memorial Hospital in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood.
When Weiss’ air conditioning went down in June, 22 patients were taken to West Suburban in Oak Park. But both Block Club Chicago and the Chicago Sun-Times reported that West Sub was also having HVAC issues, causing the hospital to be hotter than Weiss in some units.
A spokesperson from Resilience Healthcare, the company that owns West Sub and Weiss, previously told Growing Community Media that the entire HVAC system at West Sub was replaced in 2024. A subsequent FOIA filed with the village of Oak Park by Growing Community Media found no evidence that Resilience pulled any permits from the village last year for an HVAC project.
Possibly partially as a result of its HVAC issues, in July, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services published a notice, confirmed by the Illinois Department of Public Health, that said Weiss Memorial would lose Medicare funding on Aug. 9. The notice said the funding loss was because Weiss isn’t in compliance with Medicare standards in nursing services, physical environment and emergency services. Medicare reimbursement provides a majority of Weiss’ revenue, a likely issue for the safety net hospital that treats fewer patients with private insurance and more people with Medicaid or no insurance.
