December 12, 2024
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Marseilles City Council opposes OSF hospital plan

City attorney urges attendance at June 13 public hearing in Ottawa

By Charlie Ellerbrock
OSF HealthCare plans to build a new inpatient hospital in Ottawa, the hospital chain announced Wednesday in a news release. The new hospital will be built across the street, south of East Norris Drive (U.S. 6), on a vacant 31-acre plot of OSF-owned land, OSF said in its release. The current OSF St. Elizabeth Medical Center was built in the early 1970s and is at the end of its useful life with infrastructure challenges necessitating this decision, the hospital said.

The Marseilles City Council on Wednesday, June 5, 2024, adopted a resolution of opposition to OSF HealthCare plans to build a new inpatient hospital in Ottawa, because of changes to care offered there. (Scott Anderson)

The Marseilles City Council has adopted a resolution of opposition to OSF HealthCare’s plan to build a new hospital in neighboring Ottawa, which would alter the services offered there.

The resolution – similar in content to the document drawn up and passed by the Ottawa City Council on May 21 – opposes the plan recently submitted by OSF to the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board regarding a new hospital to be built in Ottawa.

OSF’s plan would move services, such as intensive care and obstetrics, to the Peru hospital that reopened in April. The plan would reduce the number of medical/surgical beds in Ottawa from 54 to 12 and operating rooms from five to two. OSF St. Elizabeth in Ottawa will have a 26-bed inpatient behavioral health unit.

Marseilles Commissioner Bobby Kaminski expressed his concern for “the lack of services our community is going to have moving forward” and would like to see an impact study of how the plan would change medical and emergency care in Marseilles, which is 28 miles from Peru, as opposed to about 8 miles from Ottawa.

Commissioner Mike Scheib called the plan “appalling.”

“It would be challenging to our medical unit, I don’t think it will be good for our residents, but I also think (OSF’s) mind might be made up,” Mayor Jim Hollenbeck said. “I was hoping they’d try to meet with us and try to find some middle ground, but it seems they’re sticking to their plan and not budging, so we’ll see.”

City Attorney Christina Cantlin-VanWiggeren encouraged citizens to voice their opinions regarding the plan at the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board public hearing slated for 4 p.m. on Thursday, June 13, at Central School, 711 E. McKinley Road, Ottawa.

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