St. Margaret's Health

Mayor Melanie Thompson told the Spring Valley City Council Monday a suitor for St. Margaret's Hospital has declined.

The St. Margaret’s Health - Streator Medical Clinic, 104 E. Bridge St., will be permanently closed effective Wednesday, May 31.

With less than a month before Spring Valley is poised to lose its hospital, lawmakers are working on a plan B: Expediting the reopening of the Peru hospital.

St. Margaret’s will close several clinics by June 9 – including the Hygienic Institute – and the Spring Valley hospital could close the following Friday, June 16, without emergency funding, possibly leaving western La Salle and eastern Bureau counties without an ER for the summer

St. Margaret’s Health has found a buyer for the Peru hospital. OSF HeathCare will acquire the former Illinois Valley Community Hospital.

Peru’s new aldermen turned their attention to solutions to the St. Margaret’s Hospital closure after being sworn in during Monday’s City Council meeting.

The Jan. 28 closing of the Peru hospital reached the front offices at the Sterling and Dixon hospitals and officials there decided this was a time, and an opportunity, for outreach.

St. Margaret’s Health “has been meeting with a larger health system regarding the potential acquisition of St. Margaret’s” in recent months, according to an internal memorandum dated Tuesday.

U.S. Rep. Lauren Underwood is urging the IDPH and the Illinois Health Facilities & Services Review Board to take every possible action to preserve access to care in Peru and surrounding communities following the sudden closure Jan. 28 of St. Margaret’s Health-Peru.

Gov. JB Pritzker’s administration is aware of St. Margaret’s situation, state lawmakers confirmed Friday.

U.S. Rep. Darin LaHood, R-Dunlap, addressed the closure of St. Margaret’s Hospital in Peru, the former Illinois Valley Community Hospital, in his visit to Streator on Tuesday.

Patients, young mothers and now-unemployed nurses all condemned the closing of St. Margaret’s Health-Peru and the La Salle County Board called for St. Margaret’s to reopen in some form and with obstetrics.

Following the closure of St. Margaret’s hospital in Peru, OSF Healthcare announced it is exploring the possibility of prenatal care at OSF Medical Group in Princeton.

Hours after Illinois Valley lawmakers urged St. Margaret’s to develop a plan for expectant mothers following the recent Peru hospital closure, hospital officials issued a 5-page statement Monday saying they will need “an immediate infusion of state support."

St. Margaret’s Health issued a lengthy statement Monday explaining the lengthy sequence that led to closing the doors of the Peru hospital. For Oglesby’s mayor, it was too little, too late.