La Salle council to send letter of support for OSF plan

The La Salle City Council approved a letter of support Monday for OSF HealthCare’s plan for Saint Elizabeth Medical Center, after hearing the city of Ottawa and the La Salle County Board will consider passing a resolution in opposition of it.

“I know it’s rough to accept the changes in healthcare in the area,” Alderman John Lavieri said Monday during La Salle’s City Council meeting. “But, in a rural area, we’re either going to have to accept the changes or we are going to lose our healthcare.”

“I don’t think us showing support, we’re not saying we don’t agree with Ottawa. I think we’re just happy to have OSF here in Peru.”

—  La Salle Mayor Jeff Grove

Mayor Jeff Grove said he believes the concerns brought up by other communities may be a result of having less services.

“But they are still having services in their city – unlike La Salle and Peru when Illinois Valley closed, we had no services,” he said. “We had to go to Mendota, Princeton, Ottawa and sometimes Pontiac.”

La Salle, Peru and many Illinois Valley residents lived without local access to emergency medical care for almost a year after the former Illinois Valley Community Hospital, then St. Margaret’s, closed in Peru.

Grove said the community was fortunate to have OSF purchase the Peru facility and reopen it in April. OSF plans to build a new hospital in Ottawa across the street from its current facility.

“Probably not the same level of services than the one they have now, and I think that’s what we’re getting concerns from, but they’re still going to have a service there,” Grove said.

OSF announced on March 7 it will build a new $126 million hospital in Ottawa. OSF has said the new facility will include a 26-bed inpatient behavioral health unit, 12 medical/surgical beds and a surgery suite, emergency services, diagnostic imaging and outpatient care services. Because of its centralized location, OSF St. Elizabeth-Peru will serve as the hub hospital within the Interstate 80 corridor and support a full range of inpatient and outpatient services, the hospital said. This includes 45 medical/surgical beds, eight intensive care unit rooms, 11 obstetric rooms to support a regional birthing center, surgery and procedure rooms, emergency services, diagnostic imaging and outpatient care services.

The Ottawa City Council will meet with OSF officials for a town hall meeting 7 p.m. Wednesday, May 15, at Central Intermediate School, 711 E. McKinley Road, Ottawa. The council tabled a resolution of opposition to OSF HealthCare’s plan for Saint Elizabeth Medical Center, on the condition the council and OSF convene a public meeting to discuss the plan further.

“I don’t think us showing support, we’re not saying we don’t agree with Ottawa,” Grove said. “I think we’re just happy to have OSF here in Peru.”

The motion passed 7-0, with Alderman Jordan Crane abstaining.

OSF HealthCare filed a certificate of need application with the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board to build the new inpatient hospital. That panel will review all correspondence from the public before making its decision on the certificate.