The decision on whether East St. Louis will lose its only hospital has been tentatively postponed until after the first of the year.
Kimberly Parker, a spokeswoman for the Illinois Dept. of Public Health, said the Health Facilities Planning Board moved the decision off the table for its Dec. 4-5 meeting in Chicago due to a need for more information.
The Southern Illinois Healthcare Foundation (SIHF) proposal to the planning board would move medical services to Touchette Regional Hospital in Centreville and turns Kenneth Hall into a 39-bed inpatient mental facility with an emergency room.
In a memo from Donald Jones, administrator in the program review section of the Illinois Department of Public Health, the State outlined seven items in need of clarification, correction or detail by SIHF. It said the project does not conform to the State board’s definition of merger. It also said SIHF must, among other things:
? Address criteria for medical/surgical, pediatric and intensive care, addition of beds to existing facilities and need to add ICU beds to Touchette Regional Hospital
? Specify a date or time frame for discontinuation of services at Kenneth Hall
? Provide audited financial statements for SIHF
? Resubmit completion date materials to reflect the fiscal year 2009,
? Provide additional information or specific explanations on how applicants will provide cash resources for the project cost,
? Insert the amount of the project being funded by cash.
Sharece Johnson, marketing and communications supervisor at Kenneth Hall, said the additional information was provided November 23.
The grass-roots effort to keep Kenneth Hall as a medical facility included a rally earlier this month and a planned journey to the upcoming board meeting to speak out against the proposed change.
“How can you declare us dead when there are still vital signs?” asked Rev. Kelvin McNeil to rally participants. McNeil is pastor of the Body of Christ Worship Center.
Organizers say the ultimate goal of SIHF is to use East St. Louis (with a population of 30,542) to justify building a new hospital in Sauget, a village of 249.
“Sauget the city cannot justify a hospital, but if they say a ‘regional’ hospital it’s like using our credit to finance something for someone else,” McNeil said.
“They are using our population numbers for their Certificate of Need.”
McNeil said moving hospital services away from the central corridor may help Sauget and other towns, such as Dupo, but each has its own resources. He said Sauget should look at putting a smaller regional hospital in Sauget without stripping East St. Louis of its hospital.
“It leaves East St. Louis on the outside,” McNeil said.
“There is an unincorporated area near Sauget in St Clair County that they were looking at putting a new hospital,” said Kenneth Hall Jr., board member of Kenneth Hall Regional Hospital. The facility is named after his father.
He denies that that a new hospital near Sauget would have any effect on either Kenneth Hall or Touchette hospitals. “It would be totally separate,” Hall said.
More than 30,000 signatures have been collected by East St. Louis city leaders, clergy and other organizers against the merger.
The Kenneth Hall hospital question is now tentatively on the agenda for the January 15-16 meeting of the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board. The meeting takes place in Springfield, Ill. at 9 a.m. (Tues.-Wed.) January 15-16, 2008 at the Northfield Inn Suites & Conference Center, 3280 Northfield Dr.
“We are planning to attend the meeting in Springfield, leaving East St. Louis City Hall at 6:30 a.m. that Tuesday,” said East St. Louis Mayor Alvin Parks Jr.