Families want pediatric services at Ingalls maintained

Less than three years after the University of Chicago Medicine merged with Ingalls Memorial Hospital in Harvey, the health care provider wants to close Ingalls’ pediatric inpatient center due to underutilization. Photo credits: By Wendell Hutson
Less than three years after the University of Chicago Medicine merged with Ingalls Memorial Hospital in Harvey, the health care provider wants to close Ingalls’ pediatric inpatient center due to underutilization. Photo credits: By Wendell Hutson

Families want pediatric services at Ingalls maintained

BY WENDELL HUTSON Contributing Writer

South suburban families are advocating for the University of Chicago Medicine to keep the 17-bed pediatric inpatient center at Ingalls Memorial Hospital in Harvey open as a convenience to them.

“I live down the street at 148th and Woods making it easy for me to bring my children,” said Brittany Flowers, a 23-year-old single mother of a 4-year-old son and a 5-year-old daughter. “Plus, I don’t have a car and if the center closes, that forces me to go to the University of Chicago in the city to get the same quality care for my kids and that’s too far.”

The 485-bed community hospital became apart of the U of C in 2016 when the two health providers merged, marking the first, community hospital acquisition for the U of C.

But now, hospital officials want to close the unit due to underutilization.

“This decision was not one made easily or quickly and follows a rigorous analysis of Ingalls’ occupancy and the needs of our community. Ingalls Pediatric Service is chronically underutilized, caring for only 4.4 percent of the local population, or an average of two to three patients per day,” Brian Sinotte, president of Ingalls Memorial Hospital, wrote in a July 15 filing with the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board. “The current volume and size of the Ingall’s pediatric unit would be insufficient to establish a new pediatric category of service under the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board’s standards and makes it impossible to sustain high-quality pediatric care that [the] Ingalls community deserves.”

Alternatively, Sinotte said parents could use Ingalls’ Emergency Room for pediatric care or at one of its Family Care Centers in Calumet City, Flossmoor and Tinley Park. And if patients require hospitalization, Sinotte wrote, “Comer Children’s Hospital [in Hyde Park] has committed to accepting the transfers or referrals without limitations or restrictions.”

A decision by the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board as to if Ingalls can close its pediatric inpatient center is expected this fall.

Health experts contend that more and more hospitals are closing their inpatient pediatric centers because most procedures are now done on an outpatient basis, and patients with serious conditions have chosen to go elsewhere like La Rabida Children’s Hospital, Advocate Children’s Hospital and Lurie Children’s Hospital.

But for some families living in Harvey and in other nearby suburbs, a trip to Comer Children’s Hospital at the U of C is a huge inconvenience.

“There’s a lot of shooting on the South Side where the University of Chicago is at and I don’t want to be traveling with my kids if shooting is going on there,” said Felicia Smyles, 34, a mother of an 11-year-old daughter, 10-year-old son and a newborn. “So

what if the 17 beds are not filled up everyday? The fact that the unit is being utilized is reason enough to keep it open and not force parents to go to Chicago for quality treatment.”

Keith Foster, 69, said his 9-year-old granddaughter has been to the pediatric center at Ingalls before and “it was a life saver.”

He said his granddaughter was hospitalized in December for a car accident.

“They [Ingalls Hospital] took very good care of my little angel,” recalled Foster, who lives in nearby Markham. “When the university first bought Ingalls, I was all for it because I knew better services would follow. But now, I have second thoughts because it seems like the university wants to slowly close Ingalls and force everyone to come to their Hyde Park campus.”

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