A bit of pleasant news was buried in the Business Section of the Sun-Times yesterday. St. Francis Hospital in Blue Island was sold to an investor group who promise to keep the troubled hospital open and invest $30 Million in improvements to the facility.
Contrast this to the Front Page howls in the Chicago Tribune and the Sun-Times a month ago claiming that St. Francis could not be sold at any price. Apparently it could be sold, and even attract a sizable investor. Incidentally, this is the same investor who had been negotiating with St. Francis for over a year, apparently unknown to The Tribune and Sun-Times.
There still is a major hurdle to providing healthcare in Blue Island. The Illinois Healthcare Facilities Planning Board has yet to approve the sale of the hospital. Yes, this is the same Board once graced by Stuart Levine, brokered by Tony Rezko, and with construction services delivered by Jacob Kieferbaum.
The current board composed of Susana G. Lopatka, Courtney R. Avery, Dr. James J. Burden is running two members short of its 5 member capacity.
So rather than investing in healthcare or providing charitable care to the poor, the new owners of St. Francis are reduced to lobbying a shadowy board for the right to provide medical care in an area that no one else would touch.
This board and many others in Illinois, are obsolete. Not only do the boards have a brazen history of corruption, the very nature of 3 unelected individuals determining the healthcare future of the people of Blue Island and all of Illinois is anti-democratic.
Governor Blagojevich has proven inept at managing even the routine process of government. A new candidate should take on this board, dismantle it and the myriad of other boards choking the taxpayers of the State of Illinois.
Fact Checker says:
Um - what is "shadowy" about the Facilities Planning Board? It's meetings are in public and well attended. It has a web-site: http://www.idph.state.il.us/about/hfp... It is subject to the Freedom of Information Act and the Open Meetings Act. It's members are confirmed by the Illinois Senate.
John Powers says:
FC,
You would think with all that oversight and regulation, that Stu Levine would not have held so much sway.
These are unelected officials making life and death decisions with no rational criteria. What gives them the authority to decide such matters?
JBP
Fact Checker says:
Go to the website I mentioned. There are pages and pages of criteria. Which ones did you review and conclude were not "rational", John Power?
MB says:
There is now a petition available for Illinois Residents to sign to push our legislature into action on the Illinois Recall Initiative. Website: http://recallblago.blogspot.com
Thanks
John Powers says:
Of course I have been to that website.
I am quite familiar with the process of 3 people making healthcare decisions for the entire state. It has given us the wretched health system we have in the state.
What is the criteria? Too much competition? Maybe some investors will make money? Some investors might lose money?
It is irrational to think that these 3, or any three people are capable of such choices, let alone with the track record of corruption the Board has.
Customers of the hospitals are perfectly capable of deciding where they want to get service without the all-knowing "board".
JBP
Rent-Seeking Checker says:
There is no reason for any government official to impede the construction of a hospital anywhere at any time, as transpired in the SSM Orland Park case. It is not the proper role of government to determine which areas are under- and over-served.
John Ryskamp says:
Obama is about to be indicted in the Rezko scandal:
Curtain Time for Barack Obama - Part II
by Evelyn Pringle Page 1 of 9 page(s)
http://www.opednews.com