St. Francis Hospital in Blue Island to close -- Hospitals and C...

Tanya

Thank you for remaining positive. You must be a wonderful person and nurse. God bless in the future and I pray you find a wonderful job.

St Francis Closing wrote:

Today started like any other work day walking into St.Francis Hospital & Health Center. As a cardiac RN for four years, but an employee of St. Francis for 17 years, at 11:00 today my world, and 1,500 others came crashing down upon us. We were informed by managment that St Francis will be closing. Employees were always kept informed of the financial difficulties that we were going thorugh, and were saddened by Transition Healthcare pulling out of a purchase agreement two weeks ago.
Coworkers and I joked as recent as this morning about tha hospital closing it's doors, but never in a million years thought it would happen! St Francis is the heart of Blue Island and is an enormous loss to the community.
Starting at St. Francis at 19 years old working in food service,
I am thankful in my years there I had the opportunity to go to college and earn a Nursing degree, as I don't think I or any of the other RN's will have a problem finding a job. I feel that it will be difficult for employees in ancillary & office positions to secure a new job that is good paying and has health benifits.
I am very sad to see this happen, and have a great feeling of loss. Losing 17 years of security, and the "family" I have known for so long.
I will miss you St Francis
Tanya Harris RN

This will be happening to every hospital in the US, unless HR676 is passed ...

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/C...

If you go to the St. Francis website, there is a fine letter from Sister Mary Jean Ryan.. quote
"The situation is this: Currently, 1 out of every 2 people who come to our Emergency Department and 1 of out 4 people who are admitted to the hospital either have no health insurance or are covered by Medicaid. Most of the people without insurance cannot afford to pay us anything, and Medicaid pays us less than what it costs us to provide care.
A hospital has to pay employees, buy supplies, and pay the utility bills. As you know, when you can’t make ends meet, eventually something has to give. So that’s what happened. We just couldn’t keep it up indefinitely.
Until and unless society accepts the fact that hospitals — or health systems — cannot bear the financial burden alone, we will see other hospitals fail and more people suffer.
At SSM Health Care, we prayed for a miracle, but it didn’t happen in time to save St. Francis Hospital. I am so very, very sorry."
It is also sad that she stated "We then offered to give the hospital for free — free — to other faith-based providers in Chicago. Not one was interested."
I lived in Blue Island and it was a great asset to the community. I hope the staff are able to find other jobs.

lopez wrote:

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i know blue island has a huge hispanic population. i am a part of it. you don't need to educate me abot my own demographics. i just think that the opinions on this page are completely ludicrous. all people deserve health care. not that i condone utilizing an ER as a clinic, but i do try to empathize with those who left their country for a "better" life only to find myopic, greedy, separatist Americans wishing to deny them the basic right of health care.

Tax paying citizens with the legal right to work in this country have a right to health care.. otherwise you pay up front out of your pocket.. I don't understand with all these urgent care centers popping up why people don't get the word out about them.. they are perfect for non-emergency (life threatening)situations, cost less, and often the wait is less.. so if people knew they had to pay the going fees at the emergency room and it was much more than the urgent care, there would be an incentive, but if people know that they don't have to pay at the ER That it is GRATIS nothing is going to change.. we need to stop giving handouts at the taxpayers expense..

joe, some of the "abnormal" "welfare" users can't get a better job because white people tend to be just a bit discriminatory. if you have any doubts, simply refer to the comment you made. "white america" ?

the only thing i can say to those of you who tend to blame St. Francis' situation on race and illegal status is this: you all are darn lucky you were born white (I am, of course, only guessing. If some of you are not, I am sure you are enraged at my labeling/assuming your race. Similar to the way some of you are labeling the characteristics of the "illegals" ) and in America. You could have just as easily been born into a family in rural Mexico, or politically messed up Guatemala where it was a necessity you travel to a foreign country with a complicated language so you could send money back to your family for food, clean water, and education. If you had to choose between life on a dirt floor where your children suffered from malnutrition and poor education or enter a country illegally to help the situation at home, what would you do? would you really ignore your family's desperate cry for help? or would you respect another country's border policies so deeply that you would watch your family suffer? what i am about to say is about to get a lot of you rightists furious, but i admire an immigrant's courage--regardless of their legal status. peace.

Pearl wrote:

From the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
Article 25
Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

So Pearl, are you willing to foot the bill for all of this, because I am mad as hell and tired as **** of paying for all these supposed rights of other people that for number one don't even have the "right" to be here..

go lopez and Pearl!
doin the damn thing.

Okay I was born in the old Saint Francis Hospital -- the Brick Hospital. This is sad. First my elementary school is supposed to become a a Kohl's and now this -- my past is disappering!

I grew up in BI. I attended all BI public schools and was a Candystriper at St. Francis when I was a teenager. After that I was hired as a paid employee at St. Francis Hospital and St. Francis Urgent Care Center in Crestwood for several years while I put myself through college. Many years later I CHOSE to go back to that hospital to have two of my three sons even though I live 10 minutes from a State of the Art hospital in Naperville. The employees at St. Francis are fantastic and truly care about their patients. It's a travesty that this hospital is closing...for whatever reason! AND..I never considered, and still don't, consider BI as being a "dump". St. Francis was one of the best hospitals that I ever stepped foot into and I was proud of having been an employee there for those few years. Also...my grandfather had heart surgery there and lived for many happy, healthy years following it.

This is one of the reasons this nation needs universal access to health coverage. NOW!

This hospital was bankrupted by a payor mix of increasingly uninsured people who couldn't pay for medical bills.

UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE NOW!

CLINTON 2008!

What a damn shame!!! St Francis was always there for the community. My sister has been employed there for 30 years... We are worried about her and her retirement. I guess thats what happens when you have a caring hospital and staff who give 100% of themselves...and what do they have to thank for it--- No jobs!!! Unbelieveable...

chaplain wrote:

I've been reading different comments but yours was the worse. You shouldn't "thank God" for what happened at St. Francis, if you really care about people, like you proudly said. I feel sad for people like you and I hope and pray that you will not have the same experience as we do now.
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Hey Buddy, you had the flu. Did you pay your bill?

i was born there 44 years ago....so sad...

I cut my hand with a drywall knife last year and went to St. Francis emergency room for treatment. I felt like I was in Mexico...signs in Spanish were all over the place.
The girl at the admitting desk could barely speak English...she gave me some gauze to wrap around my hand...I bolted and went to Palos Community Hospital...they speak very good English there and after 10 stitches I was on my way back home.

Do you think this hospital closing is something new? Hospitals are closing in California by the droves.

Time to build that fence!

Management spent $75 million to make a fancy front end

same management replaced their offices and made seemingly endless useless modifications

they instituted some very poor personnel schemes, one was the time they got rid of phlebotomists and then had to re hire them at more cost

they sold out their ER to a 'rent-a-doc" group and lost control of their costs in that area

they were rather quiet about this, staff learned of it on the radio!!

Kate wrote:

Actually I'm kind of glad that it's closing. I feel bad for the people that are going to lose their jobs, but the south suburbs are crap now because of lower income people. They were forced out of the city by Daley and now are making the south suburbs the trash of the Chicagoland area. With more and more free handout places closing, perhaps they will get a J.O.B. and work like the rest of us. Probably not, I know it's wishful thinking.

Let us guess: you yourself are an employer of low-income people who want a decent chance, and you never supported the exporting of high-paying manufacturing jobs outside of the U.S. And you don't see your comments as bigoted, because people who are poor and black or Hispanic want to be poor.

They saved my life in 1972. It is sad to see this caring institution close because of health care in the USA. The only country in the developed world with no universal health care for all it citizens.

It truly is a sad day for St. Francis and ALL of its employees. Blue Island and the neighboring communities will suffer a great loss. I've worked here on & off for 17 years. My parents were born here, myself and my siblings were born here, and my 3 children were born here. So there is more than just a job connection. It has been a pleasure and an honor to work with such caring nurses, doctors, and ancillary staff. St. Francis has become a home away from home for me and many others here. And despite all of our little squabbles and indiscretions we still our family. 1400 people lost their jobs today - mom's, dad's, kids, young adults - all trying to make a difference in this world for themselves, their families, and the patients. Where do 40,000 patients now go? And where do 1400 employees go? This was a very special place to work and the care WAS exceptional. I will miss the morning prayers by Sister Doris. I will miss the holidays with my "extended family". I will miss one of the greatest nurse managers, Gayle T., who has been an inspiration and support to many. But most of all I will miss my friends that I have made throughout the years.

joe wrote:

You can thank the non-insured lazy losers for this one. I would be willing to bet that hospitals in white america don't have the problems St. Francis does. Normal people don't go to the ER cause they have a bad period, or a cold. So thanks alot to all you lazy, worthless, welfare users for ruining a great part of Blue Island!! Get a better job and or get your **** out of here!!!!

Funny, the rest of us call it "America." Didn't know there was a place called "white america." And surely the "non-insured losers" have nothing to do with the loss of health insurance due to the massive layoffs, the closing of factories, the loss of manufacturing jobs, or the rising costs of healthcare far beyond the rate of wage increases. Blame the victims. And I bet you consider yourself a good Christian, too, living in the shadow of St. Christoper's there in the modest suburb of Midlothian.

St. Francis is such a wonderful hospital. I cannot understand that if the hospital is required by state to treat all people regardless of insurance, why is the state not helping us now.

This is such a crime to the employees and paying individuals that use that wonderful hospital.

My best wishes to the wonderful nurses on 3 South. Your the best.