The Health Facilities Planning Board broke their own rules on multiple occasions therefore legal remedies may be justified.
Many believe that all information by opposition was throughly analyzed, I don’t believe this to be true. The state agency report listed several deficiencies in the SCH such as that the proposed project did not appear to be in conformance with provisions 1110 and 1120 of planning board rules. The major deficiencies listed were location, alternatives, need and size yet at the hearing on July 1st SCH did not have to respond to these deficiencies even though planning board rule 1130.130 clearly states that the burden of proof relating to all matters falls solely on the applicant. The state was given factual independent data as to the veracity of assertions made by SCH yet these facts did not appear to carry any weight with the planning board. The Planning Board’s decision was arbitrary and inconsistent with its mission.
The state provided no summary of oral testimony or written testimony from the hearings on January 22 and January 23. There was no summary of written comments sent to Jeffery S Mark, in fact Jeffery S Mark may have violated planning board rules by engaging in ex-partee communications through a newspaper article in the Southtown Star.
At the hearing on July 1st, SCH was repeatedly ask as to why they were moving from a poor area of Joliet to the more affluent area of New Lenox. SCH repeatedly responded by not answering the question directly. They had no answer and provided no proof even though it is their burden. This is against planning board rules.
This ½ a billion dollar project did not even require planning board members to visit the campus. Therefore the board made their decision based on assertions by SCH not by facts. One member of the planning board member was assigned his position in June. I doubt very much that he went through over 3000 pages of documents in order to make his decision before voting.
At the hearing on July 1st opposition was not allowed to deliver a presentation to counter assertions made by SCH, this is simply not the American way for a hearing to take place.
This decision if affirmed makes a horrible precedent, at no time again in the State of Illinois will any hospital in a poor area be able to stop a replacement facility from moving to a more affluent area. This may be the first time in state history that a hospital was allowed to leave a city. If the city of Joliet does not stop this precedent who will?
Evidence suggests that St Joes, the only full service community hospital in the area may receive more of a burden especially in the emergency department because of the closing down of SCH. St Joes has spent approximately 150 million on their new bed tower while SCH has spent over 200 million in improvements and facilities over the last 10 years. 6 years from now if St Joes is being overburdened they could also decide to leave the community. There would be nothing to prevent them from cutting a deal with Plainfield to move 1500 feet outside of city limits to the West to a more affluent area. It is important to try to stop this horribly bad precedent for the undeserved communities throughout the state.
I also want to clarify some misinformation that has been spread through out the community.
1 If someone needs inpatient services that are not provided at SCH at the present time and they currently must go to Chicago for inpatient services they will still have to go to Chicago for services if the New Lenox hospital is built.
2. If a child needs inpatient services that are not provided at SCH at the present time and must go to Chicago for inpatient services that child will still have to go to Chicago for services if the New Lenox Hospital is built. This is very important that the community understands this reality.
There will be no new category of services at the new hospital, no open heart surgery department, nor neo-natal icu care.
Because of misinformation spread throughout the community about Children’s Memorial I want to clarify what the partnerships truly is. This partnership has been in effect for over 11 years, currently there are Children’s Memorial Offices on the Joliet campus. In the future these services and offices will be placed in New Lenox. They will be placed in the New Lenox Professional office building this building is scheduled to open in 2009. This office building will have Children’s Memorial doctors, it has nothing to do with the Certificate of Need for the ½ a billion dollar hospital project scheduled to open in 2011.
The land that the New Lenox hospital will be located was not a donation, nor gift. This land was purchased by SCH in 2004 for 4 ½ million dollars. The records indicate that this land was purchased as a farm to be used as a farm. At the hearing on July 1st SCH stated they did not know anything about a toll road at that time. In 2004 (according to SCH tax docs) there was a person on the board of directors of SCH, this same person in 2004 was also a director on the board of the Illinois Tollway authority (according to ITA meeting minutes), in 2004 an engineer was hired for the I-355 project, in 2004 plans were unveiled for I-355, in 2004 ground was broke on the I-355 project. Another board of director for SCH in 2004 was involved in land zoning laws. Yet SCH states under oath that they knew nothing about a highway being built in New Lenox right next to the farm they purchased in the same year. I personally do not believe it. Does anyone on this city council really believe that if the area from the desplaines river to Briggs street was an affluent area that SCH would try to pull a stunt like this and close down this hospital?
CORRECTION (July 17th )Also after looking through notes it appears that at the hearing on July 1st SCH stated that: "the land we acquired in 2004 even before I-355 was announced". So legally they do not say under oath that they did not KNOW about I-355. They just said they bought the land before it was ANNOUNCED. It does not change the fact that the property was purchased in 2004 by SCH as stated under oath.
The laws state that SCH can only move if they have a need to do so not because they want to do so. There has been much talk about a Veteran’s Hospital, publicly SCH gives vague statements about such issues. However privately they have been directly involved in spreading such a concept. I have a document that SCH put in their application to the State of Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board on April 28th. The document presented to the State of Illinois states that SCH will be: "leaving vacant the present and up to date facilities in 2011" it also states that "the hospital is in very good condition with inpatient and outpatient rehab facilities. At the same time SCH is telling the people of Will County that the current facility is Antiquated and Obsolete. Someone is being mislead we just don’t know if it is the Veteran’s or the People of Will County as to the condition of their campus. Remember the only way that SCH could move is if they needed to move because the current facility was not sufficient for hospital usage.
I believe the money used defending the people of has been well spent because the cities fight has forced SCH to pledge 8 million dollars, they were forced to provide shuttle service, they were forced to provide some type of primary care. I think we can do better for our citizens of East Joliet. SCH recently opened the Homer Glen Professional building in which there will be 24 emergi-care. Now why does an affluent community such as Homer Glen that is located only one exit away from the proposed New Lenox Hospital get 24 emergi-care and yet the poor people of the east side have to beg to get 9 - 5 urgent care? I believe it is very necessary to pursue every legal option, I think we can do better than the current amount of services proposed by SCH.
Please call city hall and ask them to use every reasonable legal option (815) 724-3700.
