Judge pushes receivership decision for Weiss, West Suburban hospitals to Wednesday

The year-long legal battle to reopen two shuttered Chicago-area safety-net hospitals continues.

A judge was set to assign new management on Tuesday afternoon, but that was delayed until Wednesday. Meanwhile, frustrated community members await word on the future of Weiss Memorial Hospital and West Suburban Medical Center.

Both hospitals were supposed to be placed in receivership, but after five hours of closed-door negotiations on Tuesday, it is still unclear what the future holds for both hospitals.

Uptown's Weiss Memorial Hospital closed its emergency department last August due to losing access to Medicaid and Medicare funding.

Oak Park's West Suburban Medical Center abruptly shuttered its doors in March, with the exception of some hospital-based clinic and testing services. Hospital leaders were hopeful West Suburban could reopen by July, but that did not happen.

Both are safety-net hospitals that take in patients regardless of whether or not they can pay and community members say that every day this goes on without a decision, the community goes without the services they need.

"So the parties never cared about the people. They didn't care about the patients. They didn't care about the people that was fired. They didn't care about the community. So those are the ones that are suffering the most. So that's the frustration. Is, you know, we have no help, and it seems like it's not coming anytime soon," said Ieliot Jackson.

"The lack of transparency, the lack of integrity that these institutions are having with our community, I'm just really disheartened for the whole situation," said Claybe Johnson. 

The final word on the receivership was pushed until 4 pm Wednesday.