By Kevin Haas
Rock River Current
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ROCKFORD — Mercyhealth said Wednesday that it will consolidate inpatient services at its Javon Bea Hospital-Riverside.
As part of the consolidation, the health system’s Rockton Avenue campus will transition to a standby emergency department consisting of nurses and a physician on call. Patients requiring emergency care will be treated at the Javon Bea Hospital-Riverside.
“The move comes after an extensive evaluation of the needs and utilization of the Rockton Avenue Campus,” Mercyhealth said in a news release. “The review showed the majority of the patients accessing the Emergency Department did not need to be treated at an emergency department and could be treated at an urgent care facility.”
The Rockton Avenue campus is licensed for 74 medical/surgery beds, but averages two inpatients per day, the company said.
“Mercyhealth is unaware of any other city the size of Rockford in the state of Illinois that has three trauma centers,” it said in the news release.
Mercyhealth will begin integrating its Rockton Avenue campus inpatient beds at its Riverside location on Dec. 15. The Rockton Avenue campus will become a standby emergency department on Dec. 20.
“Given the severe nursing and health care staffing shortages right now, it doesn’t make sense to continue down our current course. Realigning services across our one hospital license, located between two campuses allows us to provide a more robust outpatient facility at Rockton and expand our inpatient campus at Riverside,” Javon Bean, president and CEO of Mercyhealth, said in a news release. “We will still be able to care for the same number of people, and no jobs will be lost as a result of these changes, which will allow us to better utilize our staff to best meet our patients’ needs.”
Mayor Tom McNamara said via social media that every resident of Rockford could see this decision coming “from the moment Mr. Bea came into town.”
“As Mercyhealth CEO, he has disrespected the residents of the west side and systematically reduced services to fit his agenda from day one” McNamara said in the statement. “He keeps saying he is investing in the west side, while he continues to cut critical services to some of the residents most in need.”
Mercyhealth also said it intends to expand its MD-1 program, which brings emergency room trained physicians to the scene, along with equipment and medications not routinely carried on ambulances.
The outpatient services located at Mercyhealth’s Rockton Avenue Campus location include:
- Outpatient surgeries
- Cancer services, including outpatient chemotherapy infusion treatment
- Endoscopy
- Gastroenterology
- Family medicine
- Laboratory
- Pain Center
- Radiology and imaging
- Pulmonology
- Cardiology
- Cardiac/pulmonology rehabilitation
- Endocrinology
- Neurology
- General pediatrics
- Prehospital and Emergency Services Center
- Internal medicine
- Ophthalmology
- Adult and pediatric orthopedics
- Outpatient EEG/EMG
- Physical therapy
- Podiatry
- Rheumatology
- Wound Center