Doctors, patients and West Siders gathered last week for the fourth annual meeting of the 40+ members of Wellness West, a collaboration of health and social service providers. This meeting, though, squarely faced the current and expanding impact of major federal budget cuts for community health efforts as well as the deportation of many immigrants.
Misty Drake, executive director of the organization, started the discussion by addressing the challenges facing Chicago, which she said have increased over the last six months.
“From elements of funding cuts to being traumatized in our own homes, I want to make sure that these challenges are acknowledged here today as we reflect on the importance of working together to deliver care for those individuals that are most in need,” said Drake.
The meeting was held at the Garfield Park Conservatory under the title Reimagining Care: A Healthcare Transformation Blueprint.
Wellness West is a nonprofit partnership which focuses on health disparities across 10 zip codes, from Portage Park to Little Village and beyond.
Its mission is to improve health for West Side residents through collaboration and access to healthcare and health-related social needs.
According to its 2024 Impact Report, Wellness West’s work provided significant improvements in patients with hypertension, diabetes and depression.
The nonprofit is funded by the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services Healthcare Transformation Collaboratives.
During the forum, which was moderated by WGN-TV anchor Dina Bair, experts in West Side health care discussed how Wellness West’s multidisciplinary collaboration delivers care to patients, and on the sustainability of their work during this politically uncharted moment.
Alyssa Sianghio, a Wellness West board member and CEO of PCC Community Wellness Center, said, when asked about federal funding cuts, that though most of their funding comes from the state “there are some funding uncertainties in the future.”
“We’re hoping to continue to work with the state to say, ‘how do we take what was sort of a pilot and figure out how to make that permanent?’” she said.
Some of Wellness West’s partners spoke at the forum about ways that their collaboration with the nonprofit has helped improve their businesses, and patient lives.
“The coordination and collaboration has enabled us an opportunity to go from values alignment to infrastructure. And its infrastructure that is lacking,” said Heidi Ortolaza-Alvear, CEO of Infant Welfare Society Family Health.
Dr. Omar Lateef, president and CEO of Rush University System for Health and Rush University Medical Center, gave an example of this, sharing that the collaboration with Wellness West has allowed his community health workers to find rent for vulnerable patients.
“It was something that never happened before we established a partnership,” said Lateef.
He said factors like financial uncertainty, lack of education and inaccessibility can create health issues, causing depression, glucose spikes and a multitude of other health problems. Lateef said that using Wellness West to collaborate with other health and social services on the West Side has helped reduce those social barriers, which in turn help decrease health issues.
Cristal Gary, president and CEO of Meridian Health Plan of Illinois, said Wellness West creating collaboration between health and social services is important right now because there is an eroding of trust in our institutions and eroding access to services.
“You really need to have these deeply rooted, trusted partners, people, trusted organizations that people can go to for information, that people can go to for their needs. And when they’re scared, that doesn’t end up being a barrier that they can’t overcome to make sure that they are getting what they need to stay healthy,” said Gary.
When talking about the future and the sustainability of their services, Gary spoke to how cuts to Medicare and Medicaid may affect her patients.
“I think it’s really important to understand what that bill does and what it doesn’t do,” she said, the so-called Big Beautiful Bill passed recently by Congress.
Gary said the bill does contemplate a huge reduction in Medicaid, “and some of that reduction in funding is going to hit state budgets and going to hit providers very hard.”
“The one thing that that bill doesn’t do — for the most part — it doesn’t actually cut eligibility and it doesn’t actually change services. What it does is it creates barriers for people, and it assumes that those barriers are going to be so great that people are just going to give up and drop off of the program. So that is not destiny, we don’t have to just accept that over the coming year.”
While these barriers and threats to their work are worrying, speakers and attendees at the forum seemed ready and eager to continue to work together to bring better health care to the West Side, no matter what they are up against.
