City leaders, Mercyhealth trade jabs at hearing over moving inpatient services from Rockford’s west side

By Kevin Haas
Rock River Current
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ROCKFORD — Dozens of people including political leaders and west-side residents pleaded with a state board Wednesday to prevent Mercyhealth from moving medical and surgical beds away from its Rockton Avenue campus.

Opponents of the health care company’s proposed consolidation raised issues of equity, saying vulnerable west-side residents were losing services from a side of town that is often underserved.

Mercyhealth countered that it has expanded its services between both its east- and west-side hospital campuses because of its ability to add technology and attract physicians to its Riverside Boulevard campus. It also said it projects caring for roughly the same amount of Rockton Avenue patients this year compared to last year despite moving 70 medical and surgical beds from the west-side campus.

Those debates played out during a nearly three-hour public hearing with the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board over Mercy’s proposed consolidation. More than 40 people spoke against the move during the online meeting. Opponents included activists, patients, west-side residents and local political leaders such as state Rep. Dave Vella, state Rep. Maurice West II, state Sen. Steve Stadelman, current and former City Council members and Rockford Fire Chief Michele Pankow. About 10 spoke in favor. All were connected to Mercyhealth.

Many criticisms were pointed squarely at Mercy’s CEO Javon Bea, a native of Rockford’s west side whose allegiance to his city was questioned.

“Despite his story about being dedicated to the west side of Rockford because he grew up here, Javon Bea and the Mercyhealth board could not care less about our community. They only care about profits and their bottom line,” said Mayor Tom McNamara, who called for the public hearing. “They have said one thing and done another time and time again.”

Related: Mercyhealth says the only thing that could close its west side hospital is a flood

Mercyhealth, meanwhile, laid blame at McNamara for not committing to build a $6 million box culvert to drain stormwater from the hospital campus to Kent Creek to prevent flooding at Javon Bea Hospital-Rockton. Bea said he is committed to running the hospital “indefinitely,” but the only thing that could close it was another flood.

“If the mayor continues to refuse to spend a small amount of money for a tax-except bond to prevent the Mercy Rockton hospital from flooding, this will cause the hospital to close to dozens of medical services and 800 jobs on this Rockton Avenue campus,” Bea said during the hearing. “It’s not a matter of if the building will flood again but when, and at that point that hospital and Mercy’s $100 million investment in the hospital building will be lost to contamination.”

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After the hearing, Bea told reporters he would commit to keeping the medical and surgical bed services at Rockton Avenue if the city would install the box culvert. However, that pledge came with a caveat.

“I’d be willing to keep the beds open … but our doctors would have to be willing to,” he said. “Many of the patients that come there have a lot of different morbidities and they need to have specialists that aren’t available at Rockton Avenue. They’re at Riverside.”

“That’s the issue: We have one hospital license. So how do you maintain two full hospitals and two locations on one hospital license,” Bea said. “It was supposed to be that between the locations you have one complete hospital, and it seems that concept has gotten lost.”

The state board will continue to take written comments about Mercy’s proposal through Feb. 23. It is scheduled to meet March 15, when it would decide whether Mercy can go forward with the move.

“In my view this is the worst possible time to take one of the most needed services from the people who need them the most,” said Rev. K. Edward Copeland of New Zion Missionary Baptist Church. “It is part of a pattern that we’ve been watching over the last seven years of just continued excuses for disinvestment.”

Listen: McNamara discusses Mercyhealth proposal, Public Safety Building plans

Pankow, the city’s fire chief, said Mercy’s reduction in emergency services has led to longer ambulance service times.

“This impact has been felt citywide but is most acute for those on the northwest side of Rockford,” she said. “These transports often take two or even three times as long as a transport to the Rockton Avenue campus, and ambulances returning from these other facilities are out of service for a much longer period of time.”

She said neighborhoods near the Rockton Avenue campus have a higher portion of people with disabilities, a greater percentage of population older than 65 and a significant number of households without access to transportation.

“If services are further reduced it will likely create what we’re looking at as a health-care desert on the west side of Rockford, and it will have a direct impact on those in a 1-mile radius around the facility,” Pankow said. “Further reduction in services at the Rockton campus will be felt citywide, but most acutely by those who can afford to endure it the least.”

Dr. John Dorsey, chief medical officer for Mercyhealth, said the Riverside Boulevard campus, which opened in January 2019, was meant to serve people who needed advanced hospital care. Doctors frequently transferred patients to the Riverside campus if they needed more complex or technical skills, he said.

“Having to transfer these patients who are getting sicker from one location to another was obviously not good for patient care or safety,” he said.

As time progressed, Dorsey said, physicians admitted fewer and fewer patients to Rockton Avenue. Now the average number of patients admitted is two to three per day, he said.

Going forward, he said Mercyhealth plans for the Rockton Avenue campus to focus on outpatient services with more than 50 physicians remaining on campus. Inpatient services will all be handled on Riverside Boulevard.

“We anticipate no net change in the number of patients that we will be seeing overall, with a decrease of 191 patients on Rockton, those are the inpatients that will be treated on Riverside,” Dorsey said.

This article is by Kevin Haas. Email him at khaas@rockrivercurrent.com or follow him on Twitter at @KevinMHaas.