Owners plan to close Reese by yearend

Perhaps the problem isn't with the fact that a hospital will close, but it's still unfortunate. A knee jerk reaction is that a hospital closing isn't good for the health-care crisis. Then again this is a case of survival of the fittest in the business world. Like it or not a hospital is a business whether or not it is for profit. Story from Crain's:

The owners of Michael Reese Hospital have told state regulators that they plan to shut down the South Side facility by yearend.

The 127-year-old hospital has been “under financial distress for some time” and was unable to find a new location or another lifeline to continue operation, according to a May 19 letter from Reese’s lawyer to the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board. The letter was posted on the board’s Web site this week.

The 1,000-employee hospital also is likely to lose its lease on the 37-acre campus because the land owner is shopping the property as the possible site of a future Olympic Village for the 2016 games, the letter says. The property is owned by Medline Industries Inc. of Mundelein.

“The decision to discontinue the hospital and all of its beds and services was not an easy one,” says the letter from attorney Edward J. Green of the Chicago office of Foley & Lardner LLP. “It appears unlikely that the hospital will be able to increase its revenues sufficiently enough to support the continued operation of the hospital.”

Well the hospital has to file papers to gain approval for their closure so who knows someone might decide that this hospital should stay open. Of course there are stories out there where a hospital seeks to expand but is stymied by a regulatory agency (yes I'm looking at St. Francis in Blue Island). I won't turn this into a case of regulators determining how to either expand or close a business.