Cook County Commissioner Tara Stamps (D-1) is calling for West Side residents to be more proactive and less reactive in the face of the ongoing crisis at West Suburban Hospital.
Speaking at the monthly meeting of the Leadership Network, a coalition of West Side ministers, at the Columbus Park Refectory in Austin on April 14, Stamps excoriated West Sub owner Manoj Prasad in particular and private for-profit hospitals in general. She warned people that they must be informed and prepared to respond effectively to protect their rights and interests.
“We must stop being angry and reactive,” Stamps said. “We must be informed and proactive.”
Stamps comments came in the wake of news on April 13 that eviction notices had been posted at Resilience Healthcare’s River Forrest campus on Lake Street. “He owed $7.5 million to the landlord, and at the end he wasn’t even paying that,” Stamps said.
Later on April 14, news broke that Prasad has sued his landlord, Ramco, over the eviction notices. Eviction notices have also been reportedly filed against West Suburban’s main campus in Oak Park, and at Weiss Hospital in Chicago, demanding more than $24 million in total in unpaid rent.
And on April 15, Prasad unexpectedly announced that some outpatient medical services would be restarted at West Sub on that day.
The eviction notices come some two weeks after a contentious press conference featuring Prasad and 8th District Illinois State Rep. LaShawn K. Ford, during which Prasad was defensive about the hospital’s most recent failures, blaming it on a nearly year-long patient tracking and billing system glitch.
However, Stamps said West Suburban’s management has ignored patient needs and rights for some time now, citing the closure of labor and delivery services. She called the hospital administration’s attitude in that case “a precursor to how disrespectfully the hospital engaged with this community.”
“The majority of babies on the West Side are delivered at West Suburban Hospital,” Stamps said. Prasad’s decision to cease delivery services, she said, “immediately threw expectant mothers into crisis.”
The shuttering of West Sub’s Emergency Room was just the culmination, Stamps said. “Unilaterally and with no consultation whatsoever, that program closed,” Stamps said. “On March 27, they just kicked us down the steps.”
Stamps contends the core problem lies in the private for profit ownership of safety net hospitals that provide critical healthcare services. “Anything that’s privately owned, once that business isn’t profitable, they pull up stakes,” she said. “If it is privately owned, that means we are at the mercy of the owner. They only see us as consumers, they see us as a product.”
Stamps said the impact of West Sub’s closure goes beyond the absence of critical medical services, saying, “West Sub is also one of the largest employers in our community. Seven hundred people worked at West Suburban.”
Stamps was particularly derisive regarding Prasad’s contention that he was a “servant leader” through his work at West Suburban Hospital.
“Servant leaders don’t close doors on sick people,” she said. “That’s not the work of servant leaders. That’s the work of capitalists.”
Stamps said people on Chicago’s West Side will either stand together or fall individually against forces too big for lone individuals to oppose. Whether it is state agencies allowing privately owned hospitals to be purchased by undercapitalized, heavily leveraged interests, or the federal government working to eliminate social programs like SNAP, Stamps said the public must pay attention and demand answers before matters reach a crisis point.
“What’s happening at West Suburban is just the tip of the iceberg,” she said “This calls for radical solidarity, y’all. It’s about people saying, ‘Hell no!”