OSF plans for Peru hospital approved by state panel

OSF HealthCare’s plans for St. Elizabeth Medical Center in Peru were approved Thursday by the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board.

The plan was unanimously approved to allow OSF to add seven surgical beds and four intensive care beds at a cost of about $5.59 million. OSF expects to complete the changes by the end of 2025.

“This decision allows us to begin work on the addition of four intensive care beds in our Peru hospital that we acquired in 2023,” OSF said in a statement after the approval. “This is a significant step in our regional health care model that will preserve and sustain medical care for future generations in all communities served by OSF HealthCare.”

OSF’s plans for health care in Ottawa, however, may take months to sort out, one official said.

About 20 Illinois Valley residents traveled to the board’s meeting Thursday at Double Tree Hotel in Bloomington, with some asking the board to postpone its decision until September. Those residents said OSF’s proposed plans for the Ottawa hospital originally were submitted together with the Peru plan. OSF requested a deferral last month for its state permit applications to build a new hospital in Ottawa. The plan in Ottawa is to build a $139 million hospital but reduce the number of beds and eliminate the intensive care unit and obstetrics.

Colleen Burns of Citizens for Healthcare in Ottawa said OSF’s plan will leave a “gaping hole” of health care coverage over the majority of the population in the coverage area and that all three of the projects have a clear relation. Burns said if OSF’s regional plan were to move forward, the region would be left with a dangerous shortage.

“It’s crystal clear these projects do not stand independent of one another,” she said.

Ralph Weber, a certificate of need consultant for OSF, told the board that the hospital chain initially asked that all three projects be together because the facilities are close in proximity, not because the projects are connected. He said the discontinuation of the current Ottawa facility and its replacement facility are the two that are linked.

“I think the reason for separating them now is that we did not anticipate the concerns raised by the people in Ottawa as significantly as they have expressed them,” Weber said, referring to the Ottawa City Council and other neighboring governments passing resolutions against the plans, along with a strong showing of public comments at recent public hearings disapproving of the plan.

Ottawa Mayor Robb Hasty said he hoped that the board approved Peru’s application, but he wanted the panel to be aware that Peru was part of the regional plan and the board should review all of the applications together. Hasty said the city of Ottawa and a large number of its residents were opposed to the other plans proposed by OSF Healthcare.

“My concern is that if it goes today, it will adversely affect your decision to the applications in September,” he said.

Weber said it could take months to reach some kind of understanding of what should happen with the Ottawa facility. He said if changes are made to the plans, the plans have to be resubmitted to the state as a modification. OSF already has proposed a modified plan that would add eight more beds – four of them immediate care beds – and a second procedural room to the proposed Ottawa hospital, but the Ottawa City Council still believes the plan needs further modification.

“It’s going to be a Type A modification if it has beds,” Weber said. “So the timing of possibility and probability of another public hearing [with the state board] is something that we are really talking about in early 2025.”

He said OSF didn’t want to delay the opening of Peru any further, as it is going to take a little more than a year for the development of the ICU.

A.J. Querciagrossa, CEO for OSF HealthCare’s Western region, spoke to the board, outlining the project proposing the modernization of St. Elizabeth Medical Center in Peru by expanding the capacity from 38 beds to 45 and doubling the number of ICU beds.

“The project before you is not just a request to add beds to inventory,” he said, “but a comprehensive regional plan that ensures the future health care services for the entire CO2 planning area.”

He said the regional plan is a hub scope model centered on Peru for ICU and obstetric care while supporting care at its surrounding facilities.

The board will have its next public meeting Sept. 19 at the Bolingbrook Golf Club. It then will have input on a final report and recommendation to be released online that day. Check online, as the location may change.

For information, call the board at 217-782-3516 or visit hfsrb.illinois.gov.