Uptown community groups demand action to reopen Weiss Hospital

CHICAGO — North side community groups are stepping up their efforts to reopen parts of Weiss Hospital.

Weiss Hospital closed its emergency room and inpatient services in early August after Medicare and Medicaid terminated its contract with the hospital.

The reason was non-compliance with nursing services, emergency services and its physical environment — specifically for Weiss, that was the air conditioning. 

Without that funding, it’s hard to keep any hospital open. 

For now, only outpatient services are being offered. 

The current owners of the hospital, who took over about three years ago, said they have applied for state grants to help with improvements. To date, they have gotten about $2 billion, but they said they need many times that amount.

On Monday, a number of community members and activist groups from the city’s Uptown neighborhood gathered at Weiss with hundreds of petition signatures, demanding that the owner of the hospital reopen the entire hospital.  

“Our neighbors are suffering out here. Let me tell you something as a state senator for this community, I am telling you that people will die. People are dying. They will die if we don’t have a safety-net hospital in Uptown,” said State Sen. Mike Simmons.

Resilience Health released the following statement Monday, saying in part:

Since the closure of the hospital, we have been working on getting the hospital re-opened. We
have been in discussions with the state, county and city leadership and have obtained support
for our efforts. We have met with and interviewed several highly regarded law firms who specialize in this area and have engaged a law firm and plan to timely file the appeal. However,
one must remember, Weiss is a small safety-net hospital that has suffered many years of abuse
and neglect that will need to be addressed. Safety net grants need to be more evenly and
equitably distributed so Weiss may get its fair share.

Manoj Prasad, President & CEO Resilience Health