Weiss Hospital Owner Appeals Medicaid Funding Cuts as Activists Push for Facility’s Reopening
Lawmakers said the owner of Weiss Memorial Hospital filed to appeal Medicaid funding cuts that led to the hospital’s closure last month.
This comes as community members and local leaders are pushing to reopen the facility and improve its conditions. The hospital was kicked off the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) program in August after federal health officials discovered hospital conditions violated federal regulations.
In an effort to reverse the decision, community members and local leaders have been rallying to get Weiss Hospital CEO Dr. Manoj Prasad to file the CMS paperwork by the Sept. 24 deadline.
State Sen. Mike Simmons (D-Chicago) said he got the update from U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth’s (D-Illinois) office.
“This is a big win for the community,” Simmons said. “We just got clarification that the appeal was filed by the deadline, which was at 5 o’clock today. It should not have taken this long. The reality is that Weiss Hospital has several improvements that need to be made for the safety of the patients that use this facility.”
If CMS grants the appeal, the hospital will be designated as safe, allowing it to receive federal funds again.
Prasad has been accused of ignoring the community’s questions and mismanaging the facility. Before its closure, the hospital dealt with faulty air conditioning earlier this year on top of years of disinvestment.
Resilience Healthcare, the company that owns the hospital, said safety-net grants need to be more evenly distributed to help Weiss stay afloat after “many years of abuse and neglect.”
“Since the closure of the hospital, we have been working on getting the hospital reopened,” Resilience Healthcare said in a statement to WTTW News. “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.”
Activists worry the closure leaves a critical gap in health care access, especially for low-income and elderly patients who rely on the hospital’s services.
“It’s just the only place they really know how to go to,” Northside Action for Justice organizer Wilma Pittman said. “It’s dangerous because it’s so hard to get them to get to know another doctor. When you take someone out of their safety net, it’s traumatizing.”
Pittman, a longtime Uptown resident, said many of her neighbors remain uncertain about how they will get medical care long-term. She said she’s seen people travel farther distances to get services at other hospitals, but there’s often longer wait times since neighboring facilities have been getting an influx of new patients.
Lilly Le, organizing director with the Vietnamese Association of Illinois, said she and other community members haven’t heard any updates from Prasad about his plans for the facility.
“What’s really concerning is if money were to be given to him and there’s no concrete plan, we don’t know what he will be doing,” Le said. “There hasn’t been a lot of transparency about where that money has gone over the past few years.”
As activists await a decision on the appeal, they’ve been putting pressure on Prasad to answer to the community’s concerns about the hospital’s future.
Note: This article was updated to include a statement from Resilience Healthcare.
