Plans for new hospital could be just the Rx for the South Side

We're encouraged by plans announced this week by Advocate Health Care to build a $300 million hospital on the old U.S. Steel South Works site in the South Chicago neighborhood.

Advocate officials said the 52-bed hospital is part of a $1 billion investment that also includes expanding outpatient care facilities.

That's just the kind of thing the South Side needs.

"Over the next 10 years, we hope to change the trajectory of health outcomes on the South Side,"
Advocate Trinity Hospital President Michelle Blakely said. "We are striving to create health and wellness opportunities in a community that has been underserved."

Another plus: The hospital will occupy 23 acres of the 400-acre former South Works site, sharing the massive parcel with the planned new Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park.

The new Adocate will be built north of 81st Street, west of the Lake Shore Drive/U.S. 41 extension.

"We’re going to build a new model of care that is designed to prevent and better manage those common conditions that contribute to those shorter life expectancies," Advocate Health Care President Dia Nichols said. "A new model that keeps people out of the hospital, that meets them upstream before they become patients in the hospital."

We do wish the South Side, particularly the Southeast Side, were gaining an additional hospital out of the deal. Once the new facility is completed, the health care provider plans to demolish 205-bed Advocate Trinity Hospital at 93rd Street and Oglesby Avenue and replace it with green space.

Trinity has been a medical institution on the Southeast Side for more than a 100 years. With the kind of money Advocate seeks to throw around now, the leave-behind should be some kind of health care facility that can continue to serve the Calumet Heights and South Chicago communities, rather than simply a park.

Also, the hospital at South Works will feature 36 surgery beds, four ICU beds, eight observation beds, a four-bed dialysis unit and an emergency room with 16 bays.

Why build a smaller hospital? Blakely said the current Trinity averages only around 71 patients at any given time.

"Hospital beds are highly underutilized on the South Side. Only 50% of hospital beds on the South Side are being used," Blakely said. "That is why we’re investing hundreds of millions of dollars in outpatient care, community health and wellness services."

The city and the South Side deserve an improved health care network. Here's hoping Advocate delivers.

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