KSB Hospital formally announces the closure of its Mt. Morris Clinic

MT. MORRIS – KSB Hospital CEO Dave Schreiner formally announced the permanent closure of its clinic at Tuesday’s village board meeting.

The clinic at 405 Charles Ave. was closed temporarily as part of the hospital's COVID-19 resource reallocation plan. Among the reasons for its permanent closure were a low number of patients, its lease being up after this year, and a lack of lab and X-ray services.

“We were looking at the volume in the clinic, which has gone to eight patients a day,” Schreiner said. “At our other clinics, that number is mid-20s or low 30s. Dr. John Plescia, who has been here, relocated his office to Oregon and has been seeing patients there. The advantage is that we have lab and X-ray services in Oregon and not here.”

KSB was paying $5,000 a month for its lease with the University of Illinois. There were three staff members, the physician and at times a nurse practitioner in the building.

Because KSB doesn't own the building, it couldn’t invest in it and bring it up to the level it usually desires for its clinics, Schreiner said. It was built in the 1970s by U of I College of Medicine as a community care site for medical students.

The lack of a KSB location in Mt. Morris may not be permanent, Schreiner said.

“We want to keep open the possibility in a post-COVID environment of having a clinic somewhere here in town, whether that’s partnering with Pinecrest, or some other place in town where we might have the ability to have a certain amount of half days or days to provide care.”

In the interim, Schreiner said KSB wants to put together a transportation system so people who want to see providers in Oregon could get a ride at the hospital’s expense on certain days of the week.

There were no public comments on the closure.